Growing Up Jedi: Book Three: The Hidden Threat
by CardiacCane
Summary: The adventures of Padawan Sascha Whitestar and friends continue in book 3. Down on himself after a pair of tough missions and wondering if he has what it takes to become a Jedi Knight, Sascha will find friendship in an unexpected place. Then, that friendship will be tested on a diplomatic mission that will push the two Padawans, and their Masters to the brink. Updates Wed and Sun.
1. Chapter 1: Friends Indeed

A/N - So, welcome to Book Three of my 'Growing up Jedi' series.

This story follows Sascha Whitestar an OC and his friends (also OCs) as he progresses as a young Padawan in the Jedi Order. You'll see familiar faces from the Star Wars pop up, but in general the story revolves around my OC characters.

For those who have read book one and book two, welcome back! For those of you that are interested in catching up - well you have a lot of reading to do! You can find Book 1 and Book 2 in my profile. If you'd like to know if you can jump in and start reading right now...well you could, but you'd likely end up very confused. If you want to know if this story is worth reading then I encourage you to look at the reviews of my previous works - I may not have a huge readership, but I do have loyal fans.

As always, I'll be updating this work every Wednesday and Sunday, like clockwork.

For now, please enjoy the first chapter of Book Three - as ever all feedback is very much appreciated.

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 **Chapter 1: Friends Indeed**

"Sascha, are you in there?"

Sascha Whitestar, sixteen year old Padawan, was indeed in his room. The person asking the question was his Master, the Jedi Knight Aurine Brynar. Theoretically, he should have quickly replied that he was indeed in his room and that he was at her command. Theoretically.

In reality he didn't want to get out of his bed, and he certainly didn't want to leave his room. The only question that remained was how to get rid of his Master. Sascha liked his Master, she was a good Jedi, and and was a good mentor, she was just wasting her time training him, while she could be training someone that could actually become a real Jedi.

"I'm here," he answered, eventually.

"Can I come in?" asked Aurine.

"If you want," he replied halfheartedly.

His door opened with mechanical efficiency and his Master stepped through. Blonde and slightly below average height, she had broad shoulders and a physique that suggested obvious athleticism. Reasonably attractive by any empirical stander it was his Master's green eyes that were probably her best physical feature, being capable of great warmth while being capable of displaying great displeasure as well. She was dressed in a simple beige Jedi robe, which probably meant that she wanted him to get up and do some sort of exercise with her. Which he had no intention of doing, of course.

"It's the middle of the afternoon, Sascha, I think it's time to get out of bed." Aurine tossed a ration pack in his general direction, "Here, I brought lunch."

"A ration pack?" Despite being from the Jedi Temple kitchens, the ration pack was essentially a flavourless bar of nutrients. It tasted about as good as it sounded. "Couldn't you bring me...anything else?"

"The refectory is open for you, any time of the day," said Aurine pointedly, "Though they do not provide room service."

He sighed and climbed out of his bedroll, "What do you want, Master?"

"I'd like to keep training my apprentice. But I'd settle for having a conversation with him."

He hugged his knees close to his chest, "I'm not really in the mood for either, Master."

Aurine sat down across from him, "I know that. I can see that. But you can't just isolate yourself from the galaxy, Sascha."

"I just need some time to myself."

"I've given you time, Sascha," his Master replied patiently. "You had the entire trip from Bothawui to be alone. But now we are back home and it's time to go back to the regular routine."

Sascha looked away, "I understand what you are trying to do, Master, but I'm not up for it. I just feel tired, lethargic."

"You're depressed," Aurine said gently.

Sascha nodded, "Yeah. I guess so." He had learned about depression in his classes at the Temple, but he'd never thought that he'd ever become depressed. Why would he have? He was in training to be a Jedi! He had a small, but close knit circle of friends. He was a well-respected young Jedi, one that was known for his sarcastic humour and general amiability.

That person seemed to be a stranger to him now.

It was becoming increasingly hard to remember that young and hopeful person he had been. To Sascha's mind, his younger self had been hopelessly naïve and stupid. His younger self had thought that he could go through his life as a Jedi, maintaining the close friendships he'd had when he was younger, that he would become a Padawan and that he'd go around helping people across the galaxy. Unfortunately, reality had set in.

It turned out, in the real world, Jedi went out and occasionally helped people but paid a very high price for doing so. He himself had been endured several trips to the hospital, and at one point he'd been very close to losing the use of his left arm. Over his months as a Padawan, he'd been beaten up and hurt more times than he could count. And it was wearing on him. The realist in him could see that someday soon he wouldn't be going to the hospital, he'd be going to the morgue.

And then there was Tyra.

Tyra Harker had been his best friend for as long as he could remember. They'd basically been inseparable from age four to fourteen. They'd looked out for each other, helped each other and had a very close friendship, one that he was sure could never break. And then it did.

The rules of the Jedi regarding attachment were very clear regarding romantic relationships. But despite that, he'd fallen for his best friend and she had fallen for him. They'd even shared their first kiss together. It had been a beautiful moment that had felt so right, so perfect, that he wondered if he'd have another moment like that in his entire life. But before they could really talk about the feelings they had for each other, Tyra had left. She'd left because she chose her life in the Jedi Order and its rules and ethoses, over her feelings for him, over the friendship that they'd had. For Tyra to suddenly pick up and leave him while he was lying unconscious in a hospital bed…it still seemed unconscionable. But despite all that, despite the gaping hole that Tyra's departure had left in his heart, he still had feelings for her.

How could he be considered a good Jedi if he had these feelings for his friend? How could he be a good Jedi if he kept getting beat up and knocked unconscious? The doubt that consumed him the most was whether he wanted to commit his life to the Jedi Order. He wasn't happy with the way his life was going, with the sacrifices he'd had to make. He'd always known that being a Jedi required a certain amount of servitude and sacrifice, but he was starting to realize how much he'd be giving up if he stayed in the Jedi Order.

Perhaps it was just too much to take.

Aurine moved closer to him, "Padawan, I'm trying to help you, I really am. I know that you want to push everyone away from you. You're hurting and it's natural that you are hurt. But you can't hold your hurt inside of you. You need to get up and carry on, as much as you don't want to."

"Easy for someone who doesn't have their heart ripped in half to say," he mumbled.

"You think I've never felt loss before?" asked Aurine. "You think that I've spent years as a Jedi and never felt like I was the scum of the galaxy? That I was utterly worthless? But I got up and got on with my life though."

Sascha stood, towering over his Master who continued to sit, "Well, newsflash, Master, I'm _not you_. I don't even know if I want to get on with my life. I'm still not sure what the point of being a Jedi is. I don't want to live my life as some sort of robot – I want to have goals, ambitions, lead a good life – the life of a Jedi doesn't seem so fulfilling to me anymore."

Aurine swiped a hand through her hair quickly, it was a gesture of frustration as he had learned from his months of working with his Master. "I don't know what you want me to do, Sascha. You want space? I've given you an appropriate distance. But at a certain point it becomes a choice. Do you really want to continue with your training, or do you want to sit in your room all day?"

"I just need more time," he said plaintively. "The most important person has just been removed from my life, and I need a little bit of time to figure out what that means to me."

"If that's what you want," said Aurine, softly, "But you must know that it is against my wishes."

Sascha almost replied that he didn't care, but a part of him still did, so he swallowed that remark before it could emerge. He was formulating an appropriate reply when the door chime rang, interrupting the conversation.

"May we come in?" asked a familiar voice, one belonging to Doro, one of his best friends growing up.

His Master rose from her seated position and answered for him, "Of course, I was just leaving."

Three young Jedi walked into his room. Doro Roa was the first through the door, the tallest of the three, he just about reached average height for a human his age. Doro's close cropped dark hair was somehow both appropriate for a Padawan and stylish at the same time. Doro, while presenting a carefree countenance to the world at large, was a strategic thinker with some of the best combat footwork Sascha had ever seen.

Trigg, Doro's usual counterpart followed behind him. Trigg was shorter and stockier than Doro, but possessed the same sort of easygoing, lighthearted personality as his fellow Corelian. Trigg was reasonably well known for his skill in combat as well as his reliability – Trigg was a master of few things, but was competent in doing nearly everything under the sun.

Sascha was surprised to see the third person into his (increasingly crowded room), was Nara Nalto, a female Togruta. She had light-purple skin along with montrals and lekku that were a darker purple, accented with deep red markings. She wore a basic beige Jedi robe, with the sleeves cut off above the elbow. Nara was a Padawan who he had some history with. They'd competed against each other at the Apprentice Tournament, and although Nara had won the day (and gone on to win the whole tournment), it had been the start of their friendship. It had been Nara, not any one of his other friends that had tied his Padawan braid for the first time, and he'd felt a little connection with her ever since.

His Master smiled genuinely at all three of the young Padawans, "It's nice to see you all. What's the occasion?"

A lopsided grin appeared on Doro's face, "Well, I drew kitchen duty tonight, and only the _worst_ of friends would make someone do all the kitchen work on their own. That's why I need Sascha here. Believe it or not, he's a pretty good chef...also he tends to keep us in line when we goof off."

Sascha felt like he was being talked about, but no one was actually talking to him. He decided not to draw attention to himself and started scheming up ways to get out of the impending offer for his help. It's not that he didn't like kitchen duty, he actually found it strangely relaxing. It was that he certainly didn't want to be around Doro, Trigg and Nara. They were just too rambunctious for him, when all he wanted was to be left alone.

"So, I understand why Trigg is here, because you Corelians are basically joined at the hip," said Aurine.

"Hey!" interrupted Trigg.

Aurine continued, "But how did you get Nara to come along?"

Nara blushed slightly, her purple skin lightening for a moment, "I...uh, kind of owe Doro for the extra sessions we are doing together. He's trying to fix my combat footwork."

"I _am_ fixing your combat footwork," said Doro puffing out his chest confidently. "You just need to put in the time to do the drills I gave you and you'll be gliding around opponents in no time."

Nara stomped her foot on the ground impatiently, "I told you, I hate your stupid drills, it feels like I'm dancing with myself! It's the stupidest feeling anyone could have! If we could just keep sparring…"

"…We can't keep sparring because I keep beating you when we _do_ spar," retorted Doro.

Nara's eyes flashed for a moment, before she looked downward, chagrined, "Yeah I guess the last two times we sparred I didn't do very well, did I?"

"That's a…charitable way of describing it."

"Ha, ha," said Nara, putting her hands on her hips and pouting exaggeratedly.

Trigg coughed loudly, "Getting off topic here."

Aurine smiled, "As usual. But I give you permission to take my Padawan and use him as a sous chef. I look forward to tasting your creations at dinner tonight."

"Has anyone asked me about if I want to go help?" he said indignantly. "Or are you just going to talk about me as if I wasn't here."

Trigg looked at him oddly, "Since when do you need to be convinced to hang out with us?"

Sascha swallowed a biting retort, "I'm not really in the mood for it today, sorry."

Stunned silence seemed to echo throughout the room. Nara was the one who broke the silence, "Well, you heard him, lets leave him be. He's not interested in being our friend."

That stung him, even through the hurt he was feeling.

Aurine gave him a last stern look and walked out the door, "This is for you young ones to deal with," she said.

Nara turned haughtily and was about to follow his Master, when he said, "Wait."

The Togruta paused at the doorway, but it was Trigg who spoke, "Now you want come with us now? What convinced you?"

He stood, "Maybe I just wanted to get out of my room okay," he said indignantly.

Doro and Trigg shared a look, and shrugged. "Okay, lets go. We have to start preparing the food anyway. If we are late we'll never hear the end of it."

The four Padawans made their way to the kitchens of the Jedi Temple. Doro, Trigg and Nara all swapped barbs back and forth, laughing and joking with each other. He held himself back from the merriment. He was going along with his friends because he didn't want to seem like he was ignoring them, but he didn't feel like he was a part of them either. His friends seemed to matter less today than they had previous, but they still mattered somewhat.

Doro led the four Padawans into the food preparation area. As one might expect it was a sprawling area that contained everything from microwave units to automatic cutting devices to food preparation droids. Yet, Jedi often chose not to use food preparation droids, they chose to make their food by hand and simply have the food prep droids just there to observe and make sure that no one managed to make anything poisonous. To the Jedi, the process of making food was as important to the end result of the food – it taught everyone that everything, including the Jeammarian Sour Radish, was a part of the living Force.

Doro, because it was his kitchen duty, was in charge of setting the menu and managing his 'staff.' He, Trigg and Nara formed a loose semi-circle around him, "Whats the plan, boss?" said Trigg.

A smirk appeared on Doro's lips, "I think we'll go pretty standard with the dishes, no need to get fancy. Nara, since you are our resident predator, you'll handle all the meats."

"My only regret is that I didn't get to go hunting for meat myself," said Nara with a smile. Togruta, of course, were naturally predators, and while their stomachs were well adjusted enough to enjoy the occasional fruit or vegetable, there was no doubt what type of dish they preferred.

"Terrifying," drawled Doro. "Moving on, Trigg and I will handle preparing the main courses, which leaves Sascha doing the appetizers. We should all know what we are doing by now, but if you need assistance, the PREP-droid is over there," Doro said, jerking his thumb at a medium sized, platinum droid that was vaguely reminiscent of a protocol droid – except a protocol droid couldn't dice vegetables like a PREP-droid could.

Sascha went pulled up what Doro's chosen menu for the day was. As he expected, it was a pretty routine menu. Doro was many things, but he was not the most creative Jedi in the Temple by a long shot.

Sascha was consulting which vegetables he'd need from the freezer, when the banter started.

"Hey Togruta," called Trigg.

"What? I have a name you know..."

"Okay Nara," Trigg said indulgently. "This is a dragon clan tradition, and as you have been honorarily inducted into our clan, you will be required to participate."

"Uh, huh," said Nara as she put down her cooking utensils and stared at Trigg.

"To pass the time during our time in the kitchens, we tell stories about what we've done as Jedi Padawans. We'll each share a story or two. Our stories tend to be rather lighthearted or amusing, no one wants to hear about pain and suffering while cooking. Since you are the newbie here, you get to go first."

Nara returned her attention to her station, working on cutting some nerf steaks into fine slices which would later be placed into a salad. Sascha also returned his attention to his duties, in his case, peeling tubers. It wasn't exciting work, but you needed to be precise as the knife he was currently wielding was rather sharp. Yet, for someone trained to use a lightsaber, a mere knife seemed like a fairly paltry weapon.

There was a slightly awkward silence as everyone waited for Nara to start with her story. Finally the Togruta sighed, "I don't think you'll want to hear any of my stories. I've only been on like...three missions, with my Master, and I can't think of anything amusing that happened beyond my own incompetence."

Doro laughed softly, "So? Those are the best stories! The ones were you look like a complete and utter idiot." He looked around, "I guess I'll start, then." Doro started in his storytelling voice, "My Master and I were sent to Alderaan to protect some young noble lady during what was expected to be a tumultous time. Nice planet, Alderaan."

"You get all the good assignments, Doro," said Trigg, sullenly.

"Of course," smiled Doro. "Anyway, because I was close in age to this very young, very pretty teenaged noblewoman, I was assigned to personally protect her, while my Master observed from a distance. So, I figured that this is my chance to get in with a woman with some...financial means, so I better make an entrance. I bought a nice, long Alderaanian cloak, so that I would be able to fit in with the nobility. I looked _great_."

Nara snorted out loud, but Doro ignored her, "So I get directed to this lovely manse near a mountain range. By far the nicest place I've ever been to. And I'm just dreaming of the starfighter this fair maiden is going to by me once I save her life. I get introduced as 'Jedi Padawan Doro Roa' and I stride towards the noblewoman, looking straight out of a holodrama...when I trip on my cloak and manage to just about faceplant on the nice polished floor of this place. So, I basically figured that I botched my first impression about as hard as possible. So that called for plan 'B.'

Doro's smile got even wider, "I bow to the noblewoman and introduce myself. She gives me the once over and says, 'You must be the worst Jedi I've seen.' So I reply, 'well, you got what you paid for.'

Nara and Trigg laughed and even he cracked a smile. He was pretty sure that Doro was taking some liberties with the truth, but that quick-witted reply did seem to be within his chracter.

"Well that was amusing," drawled Trigg. "Nara you ready with a story yet?"

She shook her head, "Still thinking about it."

Trigg shrugged his broad shoulders, "Okay, then I believe it's Sascha's turn then."

He shook his head, "No, thanks."

"The ever amiable Sascha Whitestar doesn't want to participate?" Trigg turned to Doro, "Mark this date on your calendar. Today we found Sascha Whitestar in a bad mood. Possibly the first time in recorded history. What could possibly have gotten into Sascha that made him this way?"

"I don't want to talk about it," he said.

Doro frowned, "Come on Sascha, don't be a spoilsport. It can be the story you share."

"I said I don't want to talk about it." Sascha was indulging his friends by being here, he didn't exactly feel like going through story time. There certainly hadn't been anything on his missions that he could laugh about.

Trigg obviously was not good at reading his body language as he continued to pester him about it, "Aww, do we have to go and get Tyra to see what will get you to talk?"

Tyra...

"Tyra's not here," he said angrily, "and she's not my friend any longer."

"What the hell do you mean you aren't friends with Tyra anymore?" said Doro. "She's basically your sister. You two have always been inseparable."

"She's no longer my friend," he repeated. To try to quell the anger that he felt, he kept chopping his tubers, making his knife go through the green-purple vegetable with precision. The only way he was going to keep himself from exploding was by focusing on something else.

"Do you want to talk about what happened?" said Nara softly.

"No."

"I think we deserve to know what happened," said Trigg. "Tyra is a fellow member of dragon clan and if you need us to mediate..."

"I want you to shut up," he snapped.

Trigg, Doro and Nara stared at him in shock. Was what he said really that shocking? It shouldn't have been. Trigg was being annoying. He told him to stop, end of story. Force, was everyone around here so sensitive?

However his simmering anger only distracted him from what he was supposed to be doing. While cutting more tubers, his blade slipped and only his quick reactions saved him from losing about a quarter of his left index finger to his own carelessness. Instead he punctured a small, but deep gash into his finger. Immediately, the cut started bleeding.

Despite his anger, he didn't want to ruin any of the foodstuffs so he dropped the knife and searched around for a towel or anything to make sure he didn't bleed over everything. Much to his consternation, there wasn't anything nearby for him to grab that would help him control the bleeding.

Nara, was the first to notice that something was wrong. She marched over from her station quickly, grabbing a spare towel on her way and handing it to him. "What happened?"

He pressed the towel into the wound, wincing in pain as he did it, "Cut myself." Another way that Tyra had managed to hurt him, this time from several parsecs away.

Nara hung around, trying to peer over his shoulder and get a look at his cut. One of her purple lekku actually collided with his shoulder, which was just her being careless of his personal space, "Let me take a look," she said.

Sascha tensed, "Get away from me."

"Let me at least help you to the Halls of Healing," Nara offered.

Sascha shouldered her away angrily, "What the hell is wrong with you people! Our lives aren't fun adventures with stories to be shared and swapped. They are nasty and brutish and very like to be short! I don't want any part of sharing stories with you. You don't know what I've been through!" He looked all three of his friends, each were looking at him, mouths agape. Nara looked like she might burst into tears. Still he plowed forward, "I don't even know what the point of having friends is anymore! Tyra abandoned me when I needed her. Which one of you will be next? Doro? Trigg? Because I know it will be one of you. Maybe I'll be the smart one and be the person that ends the friendship, be the person that causes the hurt instead of receives it."

Having rendered his friends completely silent, he walked out of the door and towards the Halls of Healing.

Alone.


	2. Chapter 2: Old Friends and New

**Lord Darth Yoda** \- I actually was sort of going for a 'Phantom Menace'-esque title, though there is certainly a 'hidden threat' that will emerge to dominate most of the book. And yeah, Sascha isn't the best place right now - you are right to say that he's just lashing out without thinking about it. As for who will get him out of his funk...you'll see...

 **thejoker122-** It's like poetry, it rhymes! Weliss' story was left kind of unfinished wasn't it. I wonder why that was...(though don't expect him to show up anything soon.

A/N - Welcome back! I don't have much to say, other than I hope everyone is still following along!

Please enjoy the next chapter! As always, follows, favourites and reviews are appreciated.

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 **Chapter 2: Old Friends and New**

A few days after returning from Bothawui, Aurine Brynar was eating dinner alone in one of the many refectories that dotted the Jedi Temple. While normally Sascha would have been sitting right across from her, once her Padawan had returned to the Jedi Temple, he had become a recluse, simply retreating to his room and rarely emerging. He would politely converse with her when she came to visit, but otherwise he seemed to have cut himself off from the larger world.

Aurine shook her head, she was starting to miss her Padawan. She had come to appreciate his companionship in the months they had been together. Now, to have him disappear so suddenly from her daily routine had left a void in her life. She sighed to herself, and stirred her drink, she had always prided herself on being an independent and free-spirited Jedi, but taking an apprentice had changed all that. During her time as Sascha's Master she had grown more mature, more sure of herself and the older she got the more she appreciated having friends around her. Being a Jedi was hard, but having people that cared about you made it a little easier to deal with the harrowing adventures they all endured.

To get Sascha back to himself, she had enlisted the help of his friends. It had not been a coincidence that Doro, Trigg and Nara had interrupted her conversation with Sascha, she had planned that it happen that way. And now she was hoping to hear a report from the three Padawans, confirming that Sascha had been brought out of his shell just a little. Because if there was one thing that she knew about Sascha, it was that he valued his friends.

Aurine watched as the three Padawans in question entered the refectory. Their moods were glum, and instantly she knew it was because something had happened with Sascha. She sighed and picked at her food, this had not been the result she had been looking for, or expected. On the bright side, at least she wouldn't have to worry about eating this dinner alone.

Trigg, Doro and Nara all sat across from her. She noticed that the Togruta hadn't even brought a meal with her and she stared down at the table, paying little attention to her. Trigg Daniel and Doro Roa had both brought nerf steak salads with them, though Trigg had slathered his with some sort of spice, which made his meal smell rather delicious.

"Where's Sascha?" she asked, in lieu of anything better to say.

"Halls of Healing," said Doro.

She frowned, "What happened?"

"He cut himself while peeling tubers," said Trigg.

That explanation would have been amusing – a well-trained Jedi Padawan cutting his hand while doing basic kitchen duties – but somehow Aurine didn't think the story was ever going to be retold for amusement. "How bad was the cut?"

"No one really got a good look at it," replied Trigg, "But I don't think it was too bad."

"So besides that, everything went okay, right?" she asked hopefully.

Doro shook his head, "Not even close. Sascha was…just totally not himself. It was like someone else possessed his body. That wasn't the Sascha Whitestar that I grew up with. He was just so…bitter and hurt and he lashed out as us." The young Padawan shook his head, "As I said, totally unlike him."

Nara, who continued to do little more than stare at the table, interrupted, "What happened to him?"

"Sascha is still dealing with his last mission, it was a difficult one for both of us, and it took a toll on him mentally and physically," she answered

Trigg and Doro shared a serious look, "Master Brynar, I know our reputation for being practical jokers is well known in the Temple, but if there is anything we can do to help Sascha, we'll do it," said Trigg.

She picked at her food some more. Somehow, none of the food that she'd picked out a few minute ago seemed particularly appetizing anymore. "Thank you for today. I had hoped that spending some time with his friends would cheer him up. But apparently he is still the same. If I or Sascha need your help, rest assured I will contact you," she said curtly.

"Sascha had some sort of fallout with Tyra, didn't he?" blurted Trigg.

Aurine bowed her head in defeat, there was no point in trying to avoid this conversation any longer, "Yes, Sascha and Tyra admitted their feelings for each other," she said bluntly.

Doro and Trigg glanced at each other, not seeming surprised in the least. The only person that seemed to be surprised was Nara. "So, it finally happened?" said Doro, "They finally admitted that they loved each other?"

"That's what I just said," Aurine replied testily.

"Oh boy," commented Trigg, "That's not good."

"I think we both knew this day would come," Doro said to her, "We just both dreaded it, because…well…we always thought that would be the end of Sascha as a Jedi."

Aurine brushed aside their comment, "Sascha would be a Jedi with or without Tyra Harker, and he will continue to be a Jedi when he finishes his rehabilitation," she said firmly. This was what she believed. This is what she _had_ to believe.

"With respect, Master Brynar, I'm not so sure," said Doro. "Sascha and Tyra were always joined at the hip, they did _everything_ together. The hardest part of being a Padawan for Tyra was leaving Sascha behind at the Temple. And the hardest point in Sascha's life was being left behind by Tyra after she became an apprentice and he did not."

"Of course that was his own fault, he would have become a Padawan at the same time as us had he not failed so hard in the first Apprentice Tournament that he participated in," Trigg pointed out.

"Not really the point, Trigg," Doro replied testily. He turned his attention back to her "I'm not sure Sascha really even wants to be a Jedi. Tyra wanted him to be a Jedi, so that they could be Jedi together and he was happy to follow in her footsteps, but as soon as she was gone, Sascha stopped trying to be a Jedi. He spent his time in the archives and helping in the library, not continuing to train like he wanted to become a Jedi Knight. That's because Sascha, if left to his own devices, wants to be a librarian or a researcher more than he wants to be a Knight."

An uncomfortable feeling was starting to develop in the pit of Aurine's stomach. These were Sascha's closest friends and even they were admitting to her that Sascha might not be cut out for life as a Jedi Knight. Combined with Sascha's reaction since Bothawui, she was starting to see how he could wash out of the Jedi Order. She still had faith that Sascha did want to be her Padawan, but given the trauma he had endured, could he revert back to the person who preferred the archives over lightsaber training? Aurine had to admit that it seemed possible.

Trigg seemed to notice her discomfort, "Master Brynar we aren't saying he can't be a Jedi Knight, or that he won't eventually figure out his path, heck, I think he'll make a great Jedi Knight, he's determined, smart and a compassionate person, all great traits for a Jedi, some traits I wish that _I_ had. But, Sascha is a very emotional person, as I'm sure you know, and his closest connection was always to Tyra. Take that away and who knows what his left."

"If this is supposed to cheer me up Padawans, you are doing a terrible job."

Both Corelians looked downward in unison, "Apologies, Master Brynar."

Doro looked up first, "Perhaps we should tell the story of what happened the first time that Sascha confessed his love for Tyra. It's not a happy story, but it is a pertinent one." Aurine nodded that the two Corelians should continue.

Trigg started the story, "Sascha and Tyra were what? Thirteen? When it became obvious to even the most dunderheaded observer that Sascha was in love with Tyra. Eventually, one day he just confessed his feelings to her, and let me say Tyra did _not_ take it well. She had always seen Sascha as her friend and nothing more, and she was so offended that Sascha had fallen for her, like he could control his feelings on a whim," Trigg snorted in derision. "Their friendship collapsed, basically. One day they were the best of friends, the next they were almost enemies."

Doro picked up the story, "Sascha turned instantly from one of the best students in the clan to the absolute worst student. He sulked through every class, didn't answer any questions, and didn't do any of the assignments. He was officially reprimanded a couple of times, but still he just moped."

Trigg nodded, "Doro and I tried to cheer him up, help him get through the rough patch, but he basically just ignored us. We even made up a fake rumour that we had overheard Masters Leem and Yoda talking about him and how he was perilously close to being expelled, but even that didn't change his mood. Eventually, we both went to Tyra together and just flat out begged her to have a conversation with Sascha, eventually she relented and they talked. I don't know what they said to each other, but the next day, Sascha was back to his normal self."

"Only Tyra knows how to put him back together," Doro said. "Sascha and I are friends, and I know he has my back, but we were never close in the way he was with her. I don't know what it was, but we never talked about anything super important together."

"It's possibly because we are males, and we are programmed not to talk about our feelings to each other," Trigg said drolly.

Doro laughed, "That might be true Trigg. Though for all his prudish sensibility, Sascha was always more comfortable in talking with females, whether it be, Master Brynar, Tyra or Master Unduli."

"Yes, Sascha is indeed a ladies man," Trigg drawled, producing a laugh from the two Corelians and a smile from the Jedi Knight. The joke even stirred Nara out of her stupor for a moment. You could call Sascha Whitestar many different things, but he was not exactly adept at handling himself around young women his age.

"What do you think I should do?" she asked.

"Find Tyra and have her talk with him," suggested Doro.

She shook her head, "I'm afraid that is impossible."

"Why?"

"Because I have no idea where she is," she said honestly. Aurine was also pretty sure that Tyra had no intention of talking to Sascha and reopening wounds that were just beginning to heal. She couldn't help but feel a little bit upset with Tyra. While she understood Tyra's reasoning, she had to have known that Sascha would react like this.

Nara spoke for the first time, "Sascha will find his way again. I'm sure of it."

Trigg and Doro offered her comforting looks, "We are sure too." But to Aurine's experienced eyes, she detected less than a hundred percent certainty in their voices.

"What about your friend Eida? Padawan Nascal has been assigned to help Sascha recover." That had come courtesy of Master Windu, who had helped in reassigning the young Padawan to Coruscant. While she wasn't sure that Sascha needed a Jedi Healer, she figured that it couldn't possibly hurt.

Doro smirked, "Eida's a nice girl and a great young healer. She's definitely not as, uh, enthusiastic as the rest of us, but she was the sort of level-headed person that we needed in dragon clan."

Trigg spoke up, "If Doro, Tyra and myself are all defined by our abilities in combat, Eida was the exact opposite. She hates combat and only practices with her lightsaber to defend herself."

"How is her relationship with Sascha?" she asked.

Doro and Trigg shared a look, trying to decide who should speak. Aurine spared a second to look over at Nara. If it wasn't for the slight swaying of Nara's lekku, she might have assumed that Nara was comatose. Odd, to say the least. She returned her attention back to Doro, who had apparently decided to speak, "Eida and Sascha, they were the two Jedi that we tried to protect in dragon clan. Sascha...isn't talented with the Force, and neither is Eida, so whenever possible, whenever they could be shielded, we did that for them."

"Yet, I don't think they are that close," added Trigg. "Eida was always too reserved for him, and he spent a lot of his time following Tyra around."

"But she knows him pretty well though, right? Especially regarding his relationship with Tyra?"

Trigg looked contemplative, "She'll know Sascha well enough. But as I said before, only Tyra really knows what makes him tick."

Aurine shovelled a forkful of rapidly cooling food into her mouth and chewed thoughtfully. It was possible that the person that Sascha needed was a healer that knew him well, and Eida seemed to fit this bill. It was possible, however, that Sascha would come to resent more people being concerned for him. Sascha was, generally speaking, an introvert and did seem to prize having time alone. Why doesn't this problem have an obvious solution, she wondered.

"Would you do me a favour?" asked Aurine.

"Of course, Master Brynar," Doro responded.

"Try to cheer up Sascha for me? Losing Tyra was not the only thing that happened to him on his last mission and I know that he needs his friends. Don't give up on him just because he pushes you away."

"We shall try, Master Brynar," promised Trigg.

"We'll never give up on him," said Nara, finally deigning to look her in the eye

The two Corelians then shared some lighter stories about Sascha and their earlier years in the Temple. She could tell that both Trigg and Doro thought highly of her Padawan and to an extent that cheered her more than the stories themselves.

Eventually the three Padawans had to return to their studies and bid her a fond farewell. Aurine picked at what remained of her food, but it had gone cold a long time ago. She figured that it might be time to do a little therapy of her own, of course her definition of therapy was much different from what Sascha was going through.

Her version of therapy had always been finding a skilled opponent and hitting that opponent as hard as she could. She was sure she could find a willing volunteer somewhere in the Jedi Temple…

* * *

After a very satisfying sparring session in which she both hit and got hit, Aurine showered and returned to her room, intending to spend some time in meditation before turning in for the night. She started by lighting an incense candle in preparation for her meditation. The incense reminded her of her time as a Padawan under her Master, Nova Trynith. Nova had been a stern and occasionally unfeeling Master, but she had absolutely been the Master that she had needed. She considered writing her a message to her Master outlining her current problem with Sascha and asking for her advice, but knowing Nova, her advice her reply would probably be something along the lines of 'drop Sascha in the middle of a jungle and tell him that it's a three day trek to the nearest spaceport.'

To say that Nova Trynith was in the 'tough love' school of teaching was perhaps an understatement. But occasionally people needed to be reminded that things could be much, much worse.

Aurine was settling into a cross-legged position in the middle of her room and preparing to meditate when the door chime rang. Curious, she extended her senses outward, wanting to know who it was that was at her door. She was surprised to detect the presence of Nara Nalto outside. "You can come in, Padawan Nalto," she said.

The purple-skinned Togruta stepped through the door. "Thank you…" Nara's eyes widened as she got her first whiff of her incense. "…Master Brynar," she managed to say before she sneezed.

Aurine got to her feet and extinguished the candle that was providing the room's peaceful aroma, "Sorry about the smell, but I was getting ready to meditate before bed and I wasn't expecting visitors." Especially ones with such sensitive senses, thought Aurine, who knew that the Togruta's sense of smell was far superior to her own.

"No…it smells nice," said Nara. Aurine could tell by the way the Togruta's nose was constantly ruffling that she was lying, but she chalked it up to an attempt at being polite.

"What can I do for you, Padawan Nalto?"

The Togruta visibly steeled herself, "I'll be quick, but I wanted to talk about Sascha."

She smiled slightly, "I figured that, I didn't think you wanted to talk about galactic politics."

Nara decided to lean lightly against her wall, "I'm still shaken by the way Sascha was acting today," she admitted.

"You can join the club," said Aurine.

"I understand that it is none of my business, but…Sascha means a lot to me." Upon seeing her eyes widen, Nara quickly added, "Not in that way, but as a friend."

"I wasn't aware that you two were particularly close," she said.

The purple-skinned Togruta blushed in embarrassment, "I think to him, I'm just one of many friends, and not one of his closer ones. But to me, he's my first real friend."

"Your…first real friend?" she said in disbelief. That seemed impossible in the Jedi Temple, younglings were encouraged to make friends with each other, to give each young Jedi a support system that they could rely on.

Nara nodded, subdued, "I'm not particularly popular…and it is because up until very recently I was…kind of a jerk. I pushed people away, I was arrogant, I wasn't very much fun to be around, so naturally people avoided me. And I avoided them."

"What changed you?" she asked, already suspecting that she knew the answer.

"The Apprentice Tournament… and Sascha."

"You beat my Padawan at the Apprentice Tournament," she observed, remembering watching the recording of that duel. "It was a close match." Much closer than it should have been given the discrepancy of talent between Nara and Sascha, thought Aurine.

The Togruta stopped leaning on the wall and hugged herself tightly, "It wasn't that I beat him, it was the way that Sascha comported himself during the duel that made me see that I was doing everything in my life totally wrong." Nara sighed, "I'm talented, and I've always known that I'm talented. Force skills come easy to me. So I was just flat out better than most people my age, not because I was smarter or worked harder, but because I have a certain level of power in the Force."

"And Sascha is your polar opposite," she said.

Nara nodded, "Sascha didn't become a Padawan on talent, he became one because he's tough and talented and smart and a hundred different positive things I could say about him. When I fought him in the Apprentice Tournament, and this…old, untalented Jedi was in my way and refusing to lose, he made me see that for all my talents, that he was a better _Jedi_ than I was." Nara smiled, "After the tournament, although Sascha had plenty of friends, he always made time for me, to train with me, to hear me vent about things and to generally just…be there for me. He even introduced me to his friends and let me be friends with them as well. He didn't have to do that, but he did. And that means something to me."

She smiled at the Togruta, "Thank you for sharing this story with me. I had honestly thought that you and Sascha had known each other before the Apprentice Tournament. But it is nice to be reminded that Sascha is a kind soul, and I know he does enjoy helping you out."

"Right, that's what I came here to say." Nara paused, "I don't know how much you know about Togruta culture," she said.

"You might be surprised," Aurine replied.

Nara's eyes widened in surprise for a moment before returning to their normal size, "Okay, so I have this idea to help Sascha. In Togruta culture, when someone rejects the pack like Sascha is threatening to do, the pack selects one person to convince this person to stay with the pack. If this person fails to bring him back to the pack, this person is ostracized. In Sascha's case…you'd probably ask the Council for permission to terminate your apprenticeship with him."

"That's pretty drastic," she observed.

"It is," agreed Nara. "However it promotes solidarity within the pack, and for Togruta that is something of paramount importance. As it is for Jedi, I think. We have disagreements internally, but when it comes down to it, we are all Jedi. Once you choose the life of a Jedi, you don't really choose to opt out of it."

Aurine put a finger on her chin, "You are suggesting that this person that is in charge of bringing Sascha back to the pack be you," she said.

Nara met her gaze, "Yes. Doro and Trigg have known Sascha longer, but Sascha means more to me than he does to them."

"I'm not sure I'm willing to try anything so drastic quite yet," she said. "But the idea is good. Sascha may need an additional incentive to be brought back to his usual self. He might need someone to, ahem, beat some sense into him."

Nara smiled bowed politely, "Exactly. Thank you for hearing me out, Master Brynar. Sorry I interrupted your meditation."

"It wasn't a problem, Padawan Nalto."

The Togruta bowed again, fractionally, and exited the room.

Aurine paced around her room for a second, taking stock of Nara's idea more fully. While she appreciated Nara's honesty and her determination to see her friend brought back to his normal self, she hesitated at taking her up on her offer. For one, she tended to think that bringing Sascha out of his mood would be a process and not something done by one person in one moment. For another, she was wary of letting another female get close to Sascha.

While Nara wasn't exactly the most beautiful Togruta that Aurine had ever seen, there was enough similarities between Tyra and Nara, personality wise, that she was wary about putting the two of them together. She certainly didn't intend to fix Sascha's problem with Tyra by giving him another close female friend to fixate on. It was maybe being too overprotective, but Sascha had shown that he wasn't totally capable of having close female friends.

By the time that Aurine sat back down, most of the incense had already scattered, she was still able to meditate peacefully. But when she searched into the Force for an answer to Sascha's predicament, the Force was silent. Aurine wondered if that was a sign in and of itself.


	3. Chapter 3: Healers

**Lord Darth Yoda** \- Sascha's...going to get back to 'normal' - this is going to be a big growing experience for him. I know these chapters aren't particularly fun to read (nor are they to write), but its one of those things that needed to happen. Sometimes, characters need to be pushed to their lowest point. It would have been a bit of a cop out if Sascha just kind of brushed everything off, so here we are... Re: Tyra - we are going to solve that problem so it's fun to see Tyra show up, rather than as you said 'oh no, its Tyra!' You are right that its not the right reaction for that character to be getting.

 **thejoker122-** I agree with you, I certainly see Weliss as someone who could be brought back. And considering he has a history of besting Sascha, he'd certainly be an interesting villain for Sascha to meet again.

A/N - is having a bit of a heartattack, so apologies for the late chapter.

Please enjoy the next chapter! As always, follows, favourites and reviews are appreciated.

* * *

 **Chapter 3: Healers**

Sascha Whitestar sat alone in his dark room, staring at his datapad. No one had bothered him for awhile and that suited him just fine. Being alone was nice. Being alone meant that there were no expectations of what he should be doing, which was exactly what he wanted. He had agreed to meet with his old friend Eida Nascal, because he felt that he owed his Master at least that, but as far as he was concerned he couldn't be fixed by even the best of healers. No, he was beyond messed up and it would be better for everyone if they just admitted that and assigned him to the agricultural corps or the Temple archives. Anything but letting him continue this charade, this laughable idea that he was worthy of being a Padawan.

He was only sixteen but he felt tired to the bone. In only a few months after becoming an apprentice he had been responsible for so many wrongs, there was no way he should continue being a Jedi. And the one that seemed to come to mind more often then not these days was that he'd been responsible for the death of another being. He had dealt out death to Tu Dronos, a pirate that had been probably deserved to spend the rest of his life in a maximum security prison, but when he had confronted him, he had been far too overconfident that he, a then fifteen year old Padawan on his first mission thought that he could easily defeat him. Instead, he had almost met his end at the hands of Dronos' cortosis alloy blade, and only in a last desperate act was he able to finally defeat the Phindian. Unfortunately, he defeated him by killing him. A better Jedi would have taken him alive, he knew that for certain.

And losing Tyra…the fact that their friendship may have ended...that was a pain that went beyond anything he could have physically experienced. She had always been his rock, his source of strength, but he wasn't sure what she was anymore. The only word that seemed to make any sense in describing her was 'complicated.' His feelings for her still lingered, even though it was quite clear that she had chosen her life as a Jedi over her feelings for him. It turned out that you couldn't stop loving someone on demand.

He had so many problems, that he was pretty sure that poor Eida would just throw his hands up in frustration when she discovered them all, and that didn't even take into account how he was having trouble using the Force. Recently, anytime he tried to use the Force he would receive a nightmarish vision that disrupted his concentration. Probably what he feared most about these visions was that while he intellectually knew that what they showed wasn't actually what had happened, he was having trouble remembering the actual memories that they were perverting.

A voice came from beyond his door, "Sascha?" He sighed, it was Eida Nascal, as he expected. Sighing, he made his way to the door and opened it.

Eida was a Carthasian, a humanoid species indigenous to Benja-Rihn in the Mid Rim. Like all Carthasians she had large, orange eyes with black pupils, set-back nostrils on her large upper jaws and she had a collection of small green stubs on top of her head that was analogous to hair. Eida had been a member of Dragon clan, the same that he had been in as a young Initiate. As a young Jedi, Eida had been prone to having nervous breakdowns at inopportune moments. As an Initiate that displayed even less talent for manipulating the Force than he did, Sascha and his friends had often quietly wondered why she was allowed to remain in training, when she didn't seem to have any aptitude for it.

Despite their misgivings, the other members of dragon clan had always protected Eida when at all possible. After all, she _was_ a part of their clan. They would volunteer to go first when facing the obstacle course so that Eida could see the challenges that awaited her, and they each spent extra time working with her and helped to keep her skills sharp. Eventually, Eida stopped becoming nervous when using the Force and after a while displayed a hidden talent for healing. She had been chosen by Dax Bartick to be her Padawan, and now she was rarely in the Temple, as Jedi Healers were in demand across the galaxy.

"Hi Sascha," she said formally before extending a green hand and placing it on his shoulder, "I never thought I'd get personally recalled by Master Windu to oversee anyone's healing, let alone you," she said in her typical, soft-spoken voice.

Sascha smiled weakly, "I never thought I'd be on the list either."

The Carthasian smiled without teeth (because she didn't have any), "Few people are brave enough to accept help. Most would make excuses. Avoid the problem."

Sascha frowned, "Are you saying I'm brave?"

Eida gave a little shrug of her shoulders, "I read over the reports of your first two missions on the trip back to Coruscant. I think you acted bravely on both your missions."

Sascha kicked at the ground, scuffing his boot against the stone floor of the Temple, "I think I'm done being brave. Do you think there is room for me to be a Jedi Healer?"

"Are you suggesting, Sascha, that healers are not brave?" Eida said in a soft, unaccusing tone – though the accusation was certainly in her words.

Stung by the carelessness of his words, he bowed to his friend, "I'm sorry, that wasn't what I wanted to say."

"I know it wasn't," said Eida amiably.

Sascha already felt on the back foot of this conversation. It was hard to push Eida away, she was just so polite, so honest, so...straightforward. Eida had always had an aura of quiet dignity around her even at a young age and it was disarming to be around her. Nonetheless, he was committed to keeping his guard up.

"What's the plan for today?" he asked.

Eida turned slightly, "I thought it would be nice to walk and talk with a friend."

He nodded, subdued, "Lead the way."

The Carthasian exited his room and he dutifully followed. Eidal Nascal started walking at a slow, leisurely pace, "I see that you are not carrying your lightsaber, was it damaged on Bothawui?"

Sascha shook his head, "A lightsaber is the weapon of a Jedi, I'm unworthy of such an honor."

"And why do you believe that you are unworthy of handling lightsaber?" came the prodding question from Eida.

Sascha shrugged, "I thought that would be obvious."

The Carthasian trained her orange eyes on him. He would have found them unsettling, had he not grown up with Eida. "It is not obvious to me," she observed in a neutral tone of voice.

"I don't want to talk about it."

"But I do," said Eida. The Carthasian, dressed in her plain, basic Jedi robe, gestured at her hip where her lightsaber bounced softly against her hip, "Even I carry my lightsaber, even though I am no warrior. Do you know why?"

He shook his head.

"Because I earned the right to carry a lightsaber on my belt, the same as you did."

"That was a long time ago," said Sascha.

"And does that make it invalid?" asked Eida.

"The person that walked through the crystal caves on Illum and person that I am today are much different," he retorted. "The person that I am today hasn't earned the right to carry the weapon of a Jedi."

"Funny, you look like the same Sascha Whitestar to me," said Eida. The Carthasian then picked up the pace, turning their leisurely walk into a brisk one. Sascha certainly got the impression that they were heading towards the Room of a Thousand Fountains, though he wasn't sure if he wanted to ask where they were going.

He slowed his pace and made Eida turn and face him. "Look Eida, I don't wear my lightsaber because I'm scared of what I can do with it. I've killed with that blade, I don't think I want it back, I don't want to carry that sort of responsibility."

Eida nodded sagely, "Taking a life is always difficult." The healer paused for effect, "but sometimes it is also necessary."

Sascha frowned, "It sounds like you are speaking from experience." Sascha couldn't believe that Eida would take a life in any circumstances. She was just too...pure to do something like that.

"A healer must come to terms with death, don't you think?" she asked.

"I'm not sure I know what you are getting at."

Eida's lips worked for a moment, and she started walking again, making him catch up with her, "Perhaps I'll give you an example to illustrate my point. About a year ago, my Master and I were sent to Palgas IV, a small colony in the Outer Rim. There had been a breakout of Haxtin plague, and we were sent to help quell the outbreak. The cities were...mostly fine, as there were enough doctors there and enough supplies to combat the plague. The outlying lands though...the doctors wouldn't risk going out there – the predators were just too dangerous. So my Master and I went out to these outlying villages, taking what medicine we could carry."

"Sounds dangerous."

Eida shrugged, "It was. But I had my lightsaber," she said pointedly, "and there were beings out there that needed my help. I couldn't just ignore them because it was difficult."

Sascha watched as a gaggle of young Jedi passed them in the hallway, behind them followed an older Jedi, keeping a cautious eye on their charges. He wasn't used to getting preached at by Eida, who tended to be soft spoken and say very little.

Eida continued, "I came upon a small village and helped out as much as I could. I was doing good work, saving people, bringing medicine to places where speeders couldn't reach. I arrived at one village, which had gotten hit hard by the plague. It was just me and those villagers that weren't sick who had to help the entirety of the village." Eida looked downwards, "Many perished, many would have been beyond saving had we been in a top-of-the-line operating theatre on Coruscant, but that didn't make it easier to watch." She paused, "It is always the wailing of the families that got to me..."

He waited for a respectful moment, as Eida was silent, "I'm not sure where this story is going...it sounds like you did everything you could for those people."

"I did," Eida said quietly. "But I haven't gotten to the most pertinent part of my story yet. Having spent nearly a week in this village, I was almost ready to go when someone burst into our medical facility. It was a father, carrying his son in his arms. Both were sick, infected. The child was in much worse shape than the father, but when I offered to treat the father, he refused and said to treat his son instead."

"What did you do?" he asked.

Eida scratched at her face with a four fingered hand, "I knew that there was a small chance that I could save the son. I _knew_ that if I got the father into treatment immediately, I could save him. But I honored the father's wishes and tried to save his son. His son...died in my arms," said Eida softly.

"I'm sorry," he said, for the lack of anything better to say.

Eida didn't even seem to hear him, "When I went to inform the father of his son's fate, I found him in the waiting area, dead."

Sascha stayed quiet this time. While the story was terrible, obviously, he was still missing on how this story related to him in any way.

After a moment of reflection, Eida started again, "As I healer, I preserve life. But there is no doubt in my mind that I was responsible for the father's death."

Sascha raised a hand, "Hold on a minute, that man requested that you treat his son before him," he said.

"He did," replied Eida. "But the choice was mine. I know that if I had decided differently, that man would be alive. Hence, I killed him. Not as if I put a knife through him, but I killed him through my choices. And that, is exactly what you did."

Sascha rubbed his forehead, "In basic, please?"

Eida rolled her eyes, "You fought Tu Dronos. At a certain point you made a choice that it was either him or you that would be making it out alive. You chose him. A logical decision, as you are a Jedi that will help thousands of people, and he was a wanted criminal. In my case, I chose to try to heal a child, when I knew that I could save the parent. The common element is choice."

Sascha shook his head, "You are equating me driving a lightsaber through someone with you choosing between which of two sick patients to save. That seems like a false equivalency at best."

Eida remained patient, "As I said, it was about choice. We both made choices."

Sascha didn't get it. But he kept quiet, because he didn't like where this conversation was going.

The Carthasian sighed, "I know when you keep quiet Sascha, that you didn't really understand what was said."

Sascha's mouth twitched, "I guess I just think of the death of Tu Dronos as one of the biggest failures in my life. I should have been better, I should have taken him alive."

"But at the end, it was either you or him, wasn't it," asked Eida.

He shrugged slightly, "I suppose. I never should have gotten to that point, though."

Eida's voice turned steely, "I read your report, and I saw the injuries you sustained. A concussion. Numerous scrapes and bruises. Shrapnel buried in your leg. What part of that suggests that you were capable of doing better than you did?"

"I...just should have been better!"

"But you weren't! Did you get taken by surprise? Sure. But you were hurt, and you weren't capable of thinking clearly, so you made the only choice you could! Should you feel bad about what happened? Absolutely! But I don't accept that you made the wrong choice. What I _do_ believe is that you, as always, are a thoughtful young man, prone to thinking too deeply into things. If you really think that you made the wrong decision, why have you not been reprimanded?"

Sascha bit his lip, "I haven't been reprimanded but I feel like a deserve one."

"Perhaps because you actually don't deserve one."

"And how would you know that?" he said bitterly.

A bit of frustration crept into Eida's voice, "I don't know, Sascha, logic? Do you think you Master just forgot about what happened?"

"...No," he said sullenly.

Eida lowered her voice, "You can be upset about what happened, Sascha. But dwelling on the past isn't helpful. It can only bring you down."

Sascha didn't have a good answer to that. The past...hurt though. It still did. "My past hurts me. Our pasts inform our futures, I think. I'd have to be crazy to seek out more pain."

The two Padawans were just about to arrive at one of the many entrances to the Room of a Thousand Fountains. "Pain shared is not pain doubled, but pain halved," said Eida. "Don't hide your pain, share it with me, and I'll see what I can do to help you."

Sascha felt himself frowning, "I've heard that quote before. Master Unduli said it to me once."

Eida brightened for a moment, "That's very interesting!" She then shook her head, "Let's not get off topic though. The past is the past, Sascha. Don't let it haunt you."

The two of them had now entered the Room of a Thousand Fountains proper. Sascha never failed to be impressed by the simple grandeur of the Room of a Thousand Fountains. In theory it was a simple room, just a very, very large greenhouse. In practice though...

Any room that had a number of waterfalls, flora from across the galaxy, rock formations and just about everything else you could imagine, deserved a better name then just 'room.' A testament to the Jedi's belief in collective harmony, there were plants from all across the galaxy, all growing together. To his left, he saw a large Corelian Birch Tree, right next to it was a small green-red bush from Tanaab. It was something you'd never see outside of the Jedi Temple, but unless you knew where each plant was from, you'd assume they were from, you'd assume they were from the same ecosystem. It was, if you thought about it, quite an amazing place.

Sascha returned to the conversation with Eida, "I'm sorry, what did you say?"

Eida sighed loudly, "I was talking about the past. And how you are letting yourself be affected by it."

He sniffed, "Our pasts inform our future."

Eida discreetly rolled her eyes. She turned off the stone path and started walking, slowly, through some of the gardens, taking care not to step on anything. He hesitated for a moment and then followed her. Eida walked in silence for a moment before she came to a small clearing. Then, upon finding a comfortable looking rock, she sat. "Why don't we get to the healing portion of this meeting," she said, all business.

Sascha kept standing, confused, "What are you talking about?"

Eida held her arms out wide and gestured across from her, "Sit."

He shrugged and sat across from her.

The Carthasian settled into a comfortable position, "Meditate with me."

"I...don't really want to."

"This isn't about what you want, Sascha," Eida said calmly. "I've been assigned to you as your healer. Now we can do this the hard way or the easy way."

Nettled by Eida's unusually confrontational manner, Sascha tried to get comfortable as well, but found it difficult to find a position that was comfy on the cold stone ground.

"Would you like help," asked Eida.

Sascha almost said 'no,' that he didn't need help to do something as simple as meditating. But instead he calmed himself and said, "Please."

He closed his eyes and felt the Force flowing through him. Felt it flowing from his toes to the top of his head. Felt it drift from his chest to his fingers. Felt the Force all around him. But instead of pushing himself into the current, he waited until he felt Eida's presence close to his. Her presence was gentle and she guided him deeper into the Force, to a place where his physical body seemed to drift away from him and become less important.

Usually this was a place where he felt at home, but today, like the last few times he had attempted to meditate, it felt like a place that was full of potential danger.

But when he attempted to pull away, it was Eida who pulled him, gently, deeper into the Force. For a moment, he panicked, thinking that Eida was attempting to pull him into the depths of the unknown, but Eidas presence merely wrapped itself around him and calmed him down. Once he was calm again, Sascha sent Eida a wave of thanks through the Force.

What the heck was wrong with him? He'd never had a freakout like that when meditating. It was times like this where he really felt that something major had been broken inside of him. And yet, the most obvious conclusion that he could think of, was that this was a sign from the Force, telling him that he was on the wrong path.

But instead of focusing on that, he decided to focus on the present, letting his mind drift along the currents of the Force under Eida's watchful presence. Sascha was surprised to note how strong Eida's will was. Even through the peaceful meditation it seemed like Eida knew exactly what she was doing and exactly what her place was in the galaxy. It was not anything he'd ever ascribed to Eida, who'd always seemed shy and perhaps lacking confidence. Apparently, that was the old Eida Nascal.

The further one got into a meditation, the less things like time seemed to matter. But it was peaceful. Perhaps the first time since he had returned to Coruscant, he felt at peace.

But it was a feeling that was short lived.

It was not totally uncommon for Jedi to receive visions while meditating. Sascha rarely received any visions from the Force. He'd always thought it had to do with his below average talent in the Force. But today, for whatever reason he got a vision.

It started with a memory from his past. His first Apprentice Tournament. Sascha watched as his younger self flailed about, losing quickly to an opponent that he should have beaten. He remember how distraught he had felt, going back to his friends, who had all won their matches and likely secured their chance at becoming a Padawan, while he had flunked in his chance.

It continued, showing him a memory of when he was a Padawan – on his first mission to Kuat. He was running to his Master's side after she had been wounded. Except in this version of the version of the memory, when he got to her side, Aurine didn't snap back to consciousness like she had, she just laid on the boxes that were propping her up, her breathing slowing. He tried to use the Force to save her...but he failed.

 _What in the Force is this, a Force Nightmare?_ He wondered. Badly shaken by that last memory, he at least comforted himself with the fact that he knew that his Master was fine and that memory was false.

Another memory was dredged up for his viewing pleasure, but this one wasn't from a previous memory. He was just outside of his room in the Jedi Temple, when he saw a familiar figure walking towards him.

Tyra.

When she spotted him, Tyra smiled broadly and bounced slightly on her toes. Then she started walking towards him, a smile of desire on her pale face. Sascha felt his heart beating faster. This was like something out of his dreams, Tyra coming back, coming to his room, the next step would be her telling him how much she wanted to be with him...

Then, from out of thin air, a figure in black drove a red lightsaber through her chest from behind.

"Nooooo!" he heard himself yell.

He rushed to Tyra, who had fallen in the middle of the hallway and lay there, motionless. The figure in black, disappeared into thin air as quickly as he materialized. The 0.000001 percent of his mind that was focused on that detail was pretty sure the figure in black was supposed to be Weliss, but this figure seemed to be taller than the Bothan...

But that didn't matter.

By the time he got to Tyra's side, she was staring up at him with lifeless eyes. Sascha felt sick, and if he hadn't been meditating he was sure he would have thrown up. He held Tyra in his arms, as if he somehow could will her back to life. Tears welled in his eyes, and he brushed Tyra's brown hair. He'd always loved her hair...

Through his grief, he heard a dark voice whisper to him, "Her fate will be your fate too, unless you leave the Jedi..."

Sascha yanked himself out of the meditation. He slapped at his chest, to make sure that he was out of the meditation and that he was no longer dreaming or having a nightmare or whatever he had been having. Then he scrambled away from the slowly waking Eida. But not very far. He put his head into his hands and tried to control his rapid breathing.

Eida was quickly by his side. She took him by the shoulders and held him, while he hyperventilated. "It's okay Sascha. Whatever you saw...it wasn't real."

Sascha got a hold of himself quickly, and started to control his breathing. After a couple of moments, he managed it and indicated that Eida could let go of him. "Oh, Force," he said as he sat down, heavily.

"Are you okay, Sascha?"

"I don't think so," he said quietly.

Eida was kneeling over him in a flash, "Where does it hurt?"

Sascha pushed her away, lightly, "I'm fine, physically. Mentally...not so much."

"It's okay, Sascha. We can work on this," said Eida. "What did you see?"

Sascha wasn't about to tell Eida what he had seen, "Perverted memories," he said, choosing an answer that was both true and vague. He shook his head, "I don't think you can make these memories go away, Eida."

"No, and that isn't what I'm going to do," she said calmly.

"Well, maybe we can work on this, but not today," he said, getting up and brushing himself off.

"I'll take you back to your room," Eida offered.

Sascha nodded shakily, "Thanks Eida, I appreciate it."

The two old friends marched silently along the peaceful corridors of the Jedi Temple. Sascha sighed heavily, "I'm sorry you had to see that Eida. I don't know why I am like this. I think I might be done with being a Jedi though."

Eida offered him a comforting look, "Everyone needs help sometimes, Sascha. I've treated everyone from Temple technicians to Jedi Masters, there is nothing to be ashamed of. I believe that you'll be back out there and helping people before you know it. We'll work through this. You'll have as much time as you need. We'll pick this up tomorrow."

Upon reaching the door to his room, Sascha offered his friend a weak smile, but didn't make a further comment.


	4. Chapter 4: Diagnosis

**Lord Darth Yoda** \- I always wanted to include a character that was a healer, and Eida is a character that I enjoy. And you are right to point out that Sascha is getting good advice, he's just a bit too blind to know it. The vision that Sascha got is pretty ominous, but this vision was more of a nightmare, more of what Sascha fears than an actual vision of the future. I mean basically everyone from Yoda on down says that the future is always in motion, so its best not to read too much into it.

 **thejoker122-** That's certainly part of it (though it's a bit too dark for me to go there. That kind of mental trauma is also really hard to write, in my (limited) experience.

A/N - Combining a couple of chapters so it might seem a little choppy, but I wanted to cover a lot of ground in this chapter so we can get on with some more interesting things.

Please enjoy the next chapter! As always, follows, favourites and reviews are appreciated.

* * *

 **Chapter 4: Diagnosis**

 _One Week later, Jedi Temple, Coruscant_

The sizzle of lightsabers echoed around the sparring arena. Aurine, for what felt like the millionth time, tried to batter away at her opponent's defences, but her opponent simply did not yield time or space, nor did her implacable opposition make a mistake. She tried a high strike and was matched by a parry, she cut low and her opponent simply leapt out of the way. Aurine backed off and then tried to strike at her opponent with a low kick, but it was absorbed on her opponent's shin.

Rivulets of sweat dripped down her forehead, and she wiped her face with the sleeve to make sure none of it dropped into her eyes. She attacked once again, flying with precision towards her opponent. It wasn't as if her opponent was stronger than her, faster than her, or even older than her, she was just better than her and it frustrated her to no end. Funneling that frustration into determination, she brought her green blade in an overhead slash, which was met by the cool green blade of her opponent. Aurine despaired, no matter how hard she tried, no matter where her attack went, a response was always ready for her.

Her opponent sensed her flagging confidence, and for the first time went on the offensive. It was not long before Aurine was pressed backward. Aurine's parries came closer and closer to her skin and she could feel the heat of her opponent's blade as she dodged out of the way. Fatigue was setting in on Aurine Brynar, and she knew that she couldn't keep up her defences for much longer.

Yet even she was surprised how quickly it ended. On the defensive Aurine had always thought that she was still a dangerous opponent, all she needed was one opening and she could end a fight in a myriad of ways. But her opponent didn't give her one, she kept pressing her, giving her no room or even to think. She was so distracted by her opponent's blade, she wasn't paying attention to her legs, and her opponent simply swept her legs out from under her.

Aurine fell hard on her flank, "Damn it, Luminara, can't you at least give me the illusion of hope?" She disengaged her blade and pounded the floor in frustration, it had been a long time since she had been able to beat her best friend in a sparring session, but she didn't usually lose in such a pathetic manner either.

Luminara disengaged her blade, looking none the worse for wear despite their spirited sparring session, perhaps that was why she had recently been made a Jedi Master, "You are off balance today, old friend." The olive-skinned Miralian looked as stately as ever in her customized Miralian garments, and Aurine envied the graceful way she moved, in and out of combat, it had always made her feel like an oaf in comparison. Her friend sat beside her, "Sascha weighs on your mind, Aurine. He distracts you."

She sighed and laid back for a brief moment, "Yes, he does. I've left him alone this week, and Eida Nascal has been with him every day." She turned to Luminara, "Have you seen Sascha since Bothawui, Luminara? He values your advice still, you might be able to help him."

The Miralian nodded, "I have. He was very polite and engaged me in conversation, but when I tried to turn the conversation towards more serious matters, he simply clammed up and shut me out. I didn't think he would ever retreat into himself like he has. When I first met him, the only thing I could think was that he was born to be a Jedi, now I do not know if that person that I once saw remains. I hold out hope that he does though."

"I do too," Aurine said numbly. Over the past few weeks she had tried everything with her apprentice short of shaking him by the collar and beating some sense into him. Nothing had seemed to get through to him. He was depressed, that was clear, but even with a Jedi healer giving him personal care and support from his friends, he hadn't snapped out of it.

"Perhaps…it would not be so bad if he was released from being a Padawan," commented Luminara.

Aurine sat up and starred daggers at her friend, "No, he is a Jedi, he will find his path again."

The Miralian offered her a comforting look, "His path is not for you to set, Aurine. I know it would be a test for you, but if it is the best thing for him, you must release him from his apprenticeship."

"And is there someone besides me better suited to make that determination? I've known Sascha for longer, I've fought beside him, and I owe him my life. I'll give him every opportunity to rebound, it's the least I can do."

Luminara smiled wanly at her passionate response, "Sascha is lucky to have you as his Master, I could not have trained him as well as you have. Just remember Aurine, listen to the Force, if it is trying to tell you something, do not stand in its way. I know you will make the right decision."

* * *

Aurine showered after her sparring session and decided to put on her emerald coloured robe. That robe had been a gift from her Master on her sixteenth birthday, though like everything that Nova Trynith had done, there had been a lesson attached to the gift.

Nova Trynith had been a typical Zeltron beauty and as such, she attracted more than her fair share of male interest, both inside the Temple and outside. Her Master had hated the unwanted attention and she would deal with her prospective suitors with a coolness that left no question as to what her intentions were. As a physical way of concealing her beauty, she wore some of the most modest set of Jedi robes that Aurine had ever seen, they were so unflattering that they almost made her look ugly.

But that was not at all what she had wanted as a young woman. She had wanted to be courted by her peers and noticed by other people when she went on a mission. It was a bad attitude for a Jedi to have, but she had possessed plenty of bad attitude as a young apprentice. In one of her dumber moments, she had assumed that boys weren't paying attention to her because of the way she dressed and she had peevishly told that to Master Trynith one night in the middle of an argument. A week later, it had been her birthday and Nova had presented her with this emerald robe.

It suited her perfectly, everything from the colour to the cut accentuated her modest beauty and she'd been overwhelmed by the lengths that her Master had gone to acquire the robe and thanked her profusely. She'd worn the beautiful green robe on a mission to Basarais; confidently strutting around as if she owned the place, and to her delight she attracted the attentions of the governor's son, who seemed smitten with her. The mission had been so routine, Master Trynith had allowed her to spend quite some time with…Force…what was his name? Tafo…Tafo Banab. Tafo had been an amiable companion he had been more than handsome enough for Aurine to flirt with, even going to far as to surprise him with a kiss during a private moment.

Unfortunately, for her and her big mouth, she had revealed the real reason behind the Jedi's involvement on Basarais was to evaluate the political system of the planet and see if the rumors were true – that the governors were planning to seize power from the ruling monarch. Of course, Tafo had run to his father and told him what the Jedi were up to, and Aurine had to trudge back to Master Trynith in disgrace, telling her what she had done. Nova had simply shook her head at her idiot apprentice and went and made things right on the planet. As soon as she got back to Coruscant, Aurine had almost torn off her emerald robe in absolute disgust and went back to wearing her old beige robe, the one that made her feel like a Jedi, not a stupid little girl.

Now she mostly wore the emerald robe as a reminder of how headstrong and stupid she had been, though she still appreciated how lovely it still looked on her, more than ten years after it had been purchased. The robe was the same, but the Jedi who wore it had changed.

Aurine walked down the halls of the Temple, passing by a clump of young Initiates who were furiously debating who was the better swordsman, Master Yoda, or Master Windu. She smiled and left them to their debate, she remembered having the exact same conversation with Luminara as a young Initiate.

Something about that moment crystallized a thought in her mind and she turned around and headed in the other direction. After a brisk walk, she stopped outside of the door of Eida Nascal. She ran the chime, and was immediately admitted entrance.

The Carthasian was kneeling in a meditative position, looking totally and utterly relaxed. If she was being honest with herself, the Carthasian unnerved her more than a little. It was the eyes. Eida's orange eyes were both penetrating and uniquely alien. Her eyes seemed to evaluate her all in one glance and she got the sense that she knew her feelings better than even she did. "I'd offer for you to sit down, but I think you might believe that I'll start psychoanalyzing you," commented Eida with an unexpected dry wit.

"That's okay, I'll sit. I'm not afraid."

"I suppose that you wanted to talk about Sascha."

Aurine made herself comfortable on the floor, "I did. Have you made any progress with my Padawan?"

Eida hesitated, "In some ways yes, in others...no."

"Uh, explain?"

Eida shrugged slightly, "When I first met Sascha, it was clear that he was depressed. I was also able to determine that he was dealing with some minor Post-Traumatic Stress. Both of which I have treated this week."

"So, what are you saying?"

"I'm saying that physically, Sascha Whitestar is perfectly healthy," said Eida.

Aurine was relieved. "That's excellent news. Is he ready to start his training again?"

Eida's four-fingered hand twitched, "No."

"Excuse me?"

"Sascha's problems are not physical, they are mental."

"And have you fixed those?"

Eida smiled slightly, "I cannot."

Aurine shook her head in confusion, "Please explain."

Eida shifted in her seated position, "Sascha isn't sure if he wants to be a Jedi. He's still hurt over the way his relationship with Tyra imploded. These are things I cannot fix. Sure, I can cajole him, try to convince him that he wants to be a Jedi and that he will eventually get over Tyra, but I cannot do it for him."

"So we are right back to where we started," she muttered.

"I wouldn't be so glib," said Eida. "Sascha wasn't an easy patient to treat. He would often resist when I was attempting to heal him. Only time and patience allowed me to do so."

"Sorry," Aurine bowed her head for a moment, "I didn't mean it like that. I'm thankful for all the work that you've done with him."

Eida smiled, showing that she was not offended, "I know. I just have a...thing about when people discount the work that healers do."

"Perhaps you can help shed some light on what Sascha's current state is," she said, directing the conversation where she wanted it to go. Somehow, she was forgetting that Eida was a Padawan and she was a Jedi Knight. To be fair, Eida's poise, grace, and confidence made her seem much older than she actually was.

"As I said, he's healed, but not recovered, but only because he doesn't want to recover. He no longer seems to want to be Padawan Whitestar or even Jedi Whitestar." Eida stood up, "I think part of the problem with someone like Sascha is that he is...too smart, too introspective for his own good. He dwells on the past, when he knows full well that he can't change it." She stared out her half-closed window, "I've tried to help him, but he is stubborn, sometimes."

"So you are saying its up to me to get him to see where he's going wrong."

"That, and I think time will heal his psyche." Eida sat again, "Sascha's a complicated person. Very emotional while at the same time being quite an intellectual – certainly a contradiction. And his relationship with Tyra...well you could probably write an entire textbook on it. It's a wound that will take some time to heal."

"What do you think I should do?"

"Instead of asking permission to restart this training...just do it." Eida offered her a smile, "He has a deep and profound respect for you, Master Brynar. I know you don't like ordering him around, but at this point, I think he needs a strong figure in his life to direct him, and I see no better person than yourself." The Carthasian shrugged, "And Sascha has always been led by strong female figures. It was something I was able to take advantage of when treating him."

Aurine wasn't so sure that things would be as easy as Eida was making it seem, but at least it was a proactive plan. And that was better than just sitting and waiting for her Padawan to feel better. "I think I'll start training Sascha again tomorrow. Will you be staying on Coruscant?"

Eida nodded, "I'll be working out of the Halls of Healing for a few months."

Aurine rose, "Thank you for your work with Sascha...it means something to me."

Eida met her gaze, "It was nothing. I owed Sascha, and was happy to return a favour that I've longed owed him."

Aurine bowed politely, "I may be calling upon you later."

"I'm always happy to help."

Aurine went out the door, feeling a lot better about the future.

* * *

The day after receiving the diagnosis from Eida Nascal, Aurine was feeling surprisingly energized. She decided that Eida was right and she might have been too lenient with Sascha. She had treated him with kid gloves, giving him time to recover and deal with his trauma. Now it was the time for the Master to show the Padawan the correct path. And she was going to do that starting today.

She went to Sascha's room in the early morning and rang the chime. Sascha answered the door with a greeting, and prepared to follow her to the refectory as had become tradition for them. Instead, she blocked the doorway, "I think it's time we had a talk, Sascha."

A flicker of emotion played across his face, but he concealed it quickly, "As you wish, Master."

Her Padawan sat on his bedroll, while she continued to stand, "I talked with Eida yesterday. Your sessions with her are at an end, and she believes that you are healed."

Sascha's eyes narrowed, "I don't feel healed, Master."

"And you feel it is your place to question the word of a Jedi healer," she said sharply.

He hesitated, "I feel…better than I have been, Master, but I'm not even close to my old self. Maybe our definitions of 'healed' are different."

"Perhaps, or maybe it's time to continue with your training again."

"I…don't think I'm in any shape to do so, Master."

"So what is your plan Sascha? Wait until you magically feel better? Wait until I'm forced to tell the Reassignment Council that you cannot go on with your training? You can't just sit in your room all day."

Her Padawan looked stricken at the mention his apprenticeship coming to an end, which Aurine took as a good sign, at least he still at least thought that he wanted to be her apprentice. "I don't know what to do, Master," he admitted. "I just don't feel like myself since…since Bothawui. For the first time in my life, I feel scared."

"Scared of what Sascha? You are in the safest place in the galaxy, surrounded by friends and people that care about you." She paused, "Why don't we meditate together?"

Sascha hesitated, "I haven't meditated since the day I got that vision, I'm scared of what else I will see if I submerge myself in the Force."

Aurine nodded, knowing that his fear of visions was legitimate; it had been in Eida's full report regarding her Padawan's health. "Okay, maybe let's do something simple, how about you levitate your lightsaber for me."

"I don't want to, Master."

"Why not?"

"Because when I use the Force, people get hurt. I get hurt, people I care about get hurt. People die."

"People die all the time Sascha, why don't you think of the lives you've saved!"

Sascha shook his head sadly, "I can't handle being responsible for any more deaths. I didn't sign up for any of this, Master. Maybe I had a romanticized version of how my life would be as a Padawan, but now that I see the reality, I'm not sure I can handle it. Master, I nearly saw you die. I've lost count of how many times I've been close to death, and I've only been on two missions! I don't know what kind of mental fortitude other Jedi have, but I don't have it. You've said if yourself, I'm too emotional, I never figured out how to deal with all the emotions I feel from others, so the simplest thing to do is to shut them all out. Don't use the Force. It at least gives me some inner peace."

Aurine paced for a minute, Sascha was speaking honestly she knew, but she was looking for a way to get him to break out of his shell, yet he was resisting adamantly. "What do you want me to do Sascha? Do you want me to say that you are a good apprentice? You are. Do you want me to hold your hand while we meditate? I'll do that. What I cannot do is have you sit in this room and mope around like a depressed teenager, you're a Jedi, Sascha, act like one!"

She realized too late that she was letting her frustration pour out of her and that Sascha was physically reacting, pulling himself into a little ball sitting on his bedroll. Repair this, Aurine told herself. She sat beside her Padawan, "I'm sorry for that outburst, Padawan, but I'm trying to get through to you, but you just keep stonewalling me. I don't know what to do."

"I don't know either, Master, all I know is that I'm not ready to resume being your apprentice, and I'm not sure I'll ever be ready. I'm sorry for failing you." Curled into a little ball, Sascha Whitestar did not look like much, he was pale, skinny and clearly wanted to be anywhere but here, and having this conversation. This was supposedly her apprentice, the Jedi she had chosen to be her Padawan. His apprenticeship was not entirely going the way she had foreseen it going and neither was this conversation.

Aurine tried another idea, "Perhaps we should start with something that doesn't require you to use the Force. What if I could book us some time in the simulator, practice some Starfighter tactics? No pressure, just doing something that you love, and we are both good at."

Sascha was smart enough to realize when he was being thrown a bone, but he did love flying and even if she wasn't about to let him fly a real ship, doing so in the simulator was probably the next best thing. They hadn't spent much time together working on his piloting skills, as he already was one of the better pilots amongst his Padawan peers, so there was little need to focus on them when he had so many weaknesses to work on.

"Okay, Master Brynar…but can we eat breakfast first?"

She slung an arm around him and he leaned into it gratefully, "Of course we can eat breakfast, but as long as we do it in total silence like usual. Traditions must be preserved Padawan, even in our darkest moments."

* * *

For the next week she gradually brought Sascha out of his shell. It was frustrating work, one day he would be the bright, energetic Padawan she remembered, the next day he went back to being stubborn and withdrawn. In that week she saw just about every part of her Padawan's personality, some she liked, some she tolerated, and some she grew to outright hate.

Sascha Whitestar had always had a petulant streak to him, but he usually had enough goodwill with her to make her ignore his little moods. Currently, he did not have that sort of goodwill with her and she knew that she was not the most patient of teachers even with a perfectly pliant student. Now with her patience fraying on a daily basis and no dramatic improvements being made, both Master and apprentice were feeling the pressure on their friendship.

Sascha was recovering very slowly, he would use the Force, but only when prompted and when she was around. And instead of using it like a person trained from the crèche to be at home with using his natural talent with the Force, he only dipped his toe into the pool that was the Force, never committing himself fully to it. It was beyond worrying for her, if he couldn't trust the Force there was absolutely no way he could cut it as a Padawan.

Eventually, with tensions rising between her and Sascha, it was inevitable that it would all come to a head. And it did.

She and Sascha were in one of the myriad sparring rooms in the Jedi Temple. Though Sascha was still not carrying his lightsaber, she was still intent on keeping his technique sharp. And the only way of doing that without using his lightsaber was to work on his form.

Lightsaber forms, or katas, or whatever you wanted to call them, were ritualized exercises that had been perfected over thousands of years by the Jedi Order. They were designed to teach the most important positions of a lightsaber form, though much of lightsaber combat was improvised, it was these foundations that most relied upon to form the core of their technique. It was like any combat sport. You taught students how to throw a picture, perfect attack, and expected them to learn that there was rarely time in a fight to actually use such perfect technique.

Unfortunately, at the moment, Sascha's form was hardly perfect.

At first, she ignored it, assuming that it was partially just the rarity of performing lightsaber forms without the lightsaber. She found herself struggling at times to perform the moves without the weight of the lightsaber in her hand and the visual indicator of her blade, but she learned that all she had to do was think about having her lightsaber in her hand and she could feel the weight of the hit in her hand, even if the physical hilt was still latched to her belt.

But the longer they got into the session, and the more Sascha's form continued to deteriorate. It almost offended her how bad he was at this relatively simple task. And it was a task she had drilled and drilled into him at the start of her apprenticeship, and he had made progress and become good at this specific form. But right now, he was moving like he was drunk.

She controlled her emotions and said, "Form follows function. Function may be found in form," in a neutral tone.

"What does that even mean," Sascha muttered.

"It means that forms, like the ones that we are currently doing, are central to what it is to be a Jedi. By following the forms, we can find function in our own lives."

Sascha rolled his eyes, not very discreetly.

Aurine decided it was time to lose her cool slightly. "You don't want to be doing this, do you?"

"Very perceptive, Master."

Aurine brought herself into a typical form three defensive posture, her right foot back, holding her blade back in a one-handed grip with her right hand angled towards her invisible opponent, with her left arm held parallel to her body. Sascha badly aped the movement, and almost lost his balance.

"Stop," she commanded.

Sascha relaxed his body, and shook his head slightly. "I'm sorry, I wasn't very good."

"No, you weren't. Your mind seemed to be totally elsewhere."

"That's because it is, Master."

"And why is that?"

He looked downward, "Because I can't summon any enthusiasm for these drills anymore. I perfected these forms when I really, truly cared about being a Jedi Knight, when it was the only thought on my mind. But now, I just can't bring myself to care."

"Do you really not want to be a Jedi anymore, Sascha?"

Sascha met her gaze and then looked away, "Not at the moment, Master. Maybe I'll find my motivation again, but right now, I don't have it."

Aurine despaired. Weeks after Bothawui, weeks after treatment, Sascha still displayed little intent to resume his path to becoming a Jedi Knight. In fact, it seemed as if he'd taken several steps backward. And despite spending the week with him, she was having trouble in coming up with any way to turn Sascha back into the promising apprentice he had once been.

So she went with honesty, "There is a limit to how much patience I can have with you, Sascha."

"I know."

"There is only so long I can go before advising the Reassignment Council that you aren't fit to become a Jedi Knight. Do you really want to be assigned to the agricultural corps?"

He shook his head, "No."

She looked at her apprentice, exasperated, "Then what do you want?"

"I honestly, don't know, Master."

"Can you at least see this from my perspective, Sascha? Do you know how frustrating this week has been for me? I've tried to make everything as normal as possible for you, but its not working, is it?"

Sascha shook his head sadly, "No."

"You have to give me something, Sascha. I can't just have my life wait in limbo while you decide what you want out of your life."

Sascha stared at the floor, "I know I'm not being fair to you. I just think I need more time. I need to figure out who I am before I can make a decision about my future. And the truth is, I don't know who I am anymore."

It was times like these where Aurine badly wanted some sort of 'Masters Guide to Training Your Padawan Manual' to actually exist. But it didn't, so she had to come up with a plan herself. "Okay, Sascha. I'll give you time. _If_ you give you give me a plan for how you are going to decide what your path is. And I want it tomorrow."

Sascha looked for a moment like he might argue with her. That moment passed and he bowed politely to her, "That's fair, Master Brynar. May I be excused to think about this?"

"It's a better idea than watching you try lightsaber forms," she jested lightly.

The old Sascha Whitestar would have laughed, or at least smirked at her joke. This 'new' Sascha Whitestar, however, just blinked at her joke and walked out the door.

Aurine stared at the ceiling, wondering if there was any way to get her apprentice's training back on track. She wondered if the old Sascha Whitestar was well and truly gone.


	5. Chapter 5: A Master's Gambit

**Lord Darth Yoda** \- I think Aurine is basically at her wits end. She forgot that she was signing up for the 'drag a teenager around the galaxy club.' It's not all fun and games. Sascha is certainly in 'woe is me, I'm so alone mode' - would be nice if he realized that he is - superpowered, has several friends that care about, has his own ship, has a Master that cares about him. But no, a girl broke his heart so he's sad. It's funny because when I was a teenager I certainly had moments like that, so you can say I'm writing Sascha from my own experiences!

 **thejoker122-** Yeah, I definitely wrote this arc when I was in a different place emotionally. The unemployed CardiacCane wrote this arc (and now the gainfully employed and happy with his life CardiacCane is editing it). That quote is a good one - but I think most athletes choose to say 'I'm going to put everything I have into this,' and then they make their sacrifices. Sascha's point would be that he never chose to be a Jedi - he was just born into it, he hasn't chosen his path in life.

A/N - So, as you might be aware, I'm pretty adverse to having actual canon characters in this work...but we are about to see an exception to this rule. This chapter will introduce Tiplee - a character that has a small role in Star Wars: The Clone Wars. She even has a canonical death (thanks, Son of Dathomir - which is a really good comic btw). I refer to her as a Rishati, even though her species isn't listed, that's because her character was modeled after concept art for an female Sith warrior. 'Sithari' is the name of the 'perfect Sith,' and I moved the letters around to create Rishati, thus honoring the legacy of the character.

For a quick browse of what she looks like you can find it here: wiki/Tiplee Tiplee is going to have a decent role in this work. I really loved the character design and am happy to be expanding on her character (even if its just in this little fic).

Anyways, please enjoy the next chapter!

* * *

 **Chapter 5: A Master's Gambit**

The next day Aurine ate her breakfast alone in the refectory. Usually Sascha would join her, but she didn't think he'd want to leave his room today. He was supposed to give her his plan for moving forward today, but Sascha seemed to be about as out of ideas as she was. At least there would be some sort of framework in place. Maybe that would be enough to spur Sascha into making a positive change in his life.

If he didn't thought…

If Sascha didn't show signs of progress, it would hurt her beyond words, but she would report to the Reassignment Council as to his current state and how he could no longer be considered a candidate to continue his training as a Padawan. From there he would likely be assigned to one of the four Jedi Service Corps, or perhaps assigned to the archives or the library as a researcher.

If it got to that point, she decided that she would take a mission and not return to the Temple for a long time. She knew that she would want to be away from the site of her failure. The Jedi Temple had always felt like home to her, but she wasn't quite sure if it would ever feel the same anymore. Sascha was going to be the only Padawan she would ever take, she knew. She couldn't fathom ever taking another after this ordeal, she had proved that she was not a very good teacher and she didn't want to subject another apprentice to her teachings.

The worst part was that it had started out so promisingly. Her and Sascha been more than just Master and apprentice, they had been friends, and both of them had seemed to enjoy the others company. He had even saved her life on their very first mission, putting himself in the line of fire to do so. She had learned so much from teaching him, and learned even more about herself, her weaknesses became clearer and she had been feeling like she was becoming a mature young woman. All that seemed to be shattered now. She had failed as a Master, and now she just wanted to be anywhere but the Jedi Temple.

She finished her meal and went back to her room, feeling almost as depressed as her Padawan. In her room she laid on her bedroll, stared up at the ceiling, and tried to turn off her mind. It wasn't exactly blissful meditation, but turning off her mind gave her a sort of serenity that she had been lacking for a long time. Much like her Padawan, using the Force lately hadn't brought her much piece of mind.

An indeterminate amount of time later, her chime rang. Assuming that it was Luminara, who no doubt could feel her distress, she didn't bother to make herself look presentable as she went to the door. When she opened the door, she found that the Jedi standing on the other side of the door was not Luminara. Instead, it was an average sized; red-skinned humanoid with feathery hair that seemed to float with the tiny wind currents of the Temple, the hair started off the as red, but became blue at the tips. Her lips, eyes and eyebrows were varying shades of blue and she wore brown and beige Jedi robes. The Jedi Knight bowed slightly to her, "Master Brynar, may I have a moment of your time?"

"Of course, Master Tiplee," she replied politely if robotically.

Tiplee was a Rishati and twin sister to another Jedi Knight, Tiplar. She was Nara Nalto's Master, and beyond that…she knew very little about the very alien looking Tiplee. She had talked to her a few times when observing their Padawans spar together, but beyond that, she had no idea why she was here in her room.

"You must be wondering why I am here," said Tiplee, her voice lilting slightly in accented basic.

"I don't often get social calls," Aurine admitted lightly.

The red-skinned Rishati grinned slightly, "I myself do not get many social calls either, but this is not why I am here. I had an interesting conversation last night with my Padawan and she relayed the trouble that he had, and you are continuing to have with your apprentice."

"I…um…I'm not sure what you are getting at, Master Tiplee."

"May I sit?" asked the Jedi Knight. Aurine waved a hand, and the Rishati sat on the cool stone floor of her room, there simply were no chairs for either of them to sit on. Aurine remained standing, while Tiplee continued, "Nara does not talk often about her friends. Generally speaking that is because she doesn't have any. It is also because she is a very private person. But today she mentioned the trouble that you are having with your Padawan. I'd like to help."

"Help how?"

The Rishati wavered for a moment, "I think I can help him because I know what he is going through."

Aurine hadn't quite found her footing in this conversation, and she wasn't sure she was going to be finding it any time soon. "Perhaps you could explain that to me."

Tiplee nodded amiably, "As you may or may not know, I was brought to the Temple with my twin sister Tiplar. We were inseparable for most of our childhood, I had other friends, sure, but nothing like the connection I had with my sister. The hardest day of my life was when my sister and I became Padawans and she went on a mission, and for the first time in my life I was without her." The Rishati frowned at herself, "I was not alone, nor should I have perceived myself as such, but I found I could barely function without my sister. One day I was a bright young Padawan, the day after she left I was useless."

"So you see, Master Brynar, I know something about attachment, about being attached to someone that you care about more than anything. I know what it's like to have that relationship ripped away from you, like it was with Sascha and Tyra. People assume you'll get over it, but when you tie so much of your self-worth to another person, it is hard sometimes to find the person you were before. I, perhaps more than anyone in the Temple, can sympathize with what Sascha is going through."

Aurine absorbed Tiplee's speech thoughtfully. While she did know about Tiplee's sister, Tiplar, she hadn't known the exact circumstances of their relationship. She would have thought that the two sisters may have been separated once they were brought to the Temple, but apparently that was not the case. She supposed it wasn't surprising that they had developed a close emotional bond during their childhood.

"I admit that I have trouble in understanding what exactly he has gone through, to break up with someone that you loved is not something I've ever had to do." She sat across from Tiplee and folded her legs underneath her, "How did you find yourself again?"

Tiplee smiled wanly, "I was too absorbed by my own self-pity to see what I was doing. However, a good friend of mine was able to make me see differently."

Aurine shook her head in confusion, "I'm not sure where this conversation is going, so perhaps you should just get straight to it, after all, the people that know me, know that I am a direct person."

The red-skinned Jedi Knight seemed a little confounded by her hostility, her feathery hair waving with every movement that she made. Nonetheless, she continued with her story, "I believe that like myself, only a friend or outsider can shake Sascha out of his current funk."

"It's a great theory, unfortunately Sascha has gone to great lengths to shut out his friends, Tiplee."

She nodded, "Which was something I did as well."

"So how do you propose getting around that? My Padawan is pretty good at avoiding people, and he's been practicing a lot over the past little while."

"I believe the solution to that problem is to find someone who will simply ignore his efforts to isolate himself."

Aurine snorted, "Sascha's friends are all too polite and well-meaning to do that. He's managed to isolate himself so well, even his best friends have stopped trying."

"I believe that my apprentice spoke to you a while back. She very much wants the chance to help Sascha. And knowing my apprentice, she will not be put off by his attempts at pushing her away," said Tiplee. "In fact, it may encourage her further."

Aurine folded her arms across her chest, Nara Nalto was one of Sascha's newest friends, and a young Togruta that he had helped see the error of her ways as an Initiate. Now as Padawans, they had often sparred with each other. They were friends, certainly, but not at anywhere near the level of his closest friends. Nara was also quite possibly willful enough to ignore some of the unwritten rules of working with fellow Jedi. "And you think that Nara could do what his best friends could not?"

The Rishati nodded, "I do…I actually had a vision of Sascha and Nara working together, clearly this vision was supposed to take place far in the future, as both of them were much older. In this short vision, I could tell that they trusted each other, and the level of teamwork they displayed was impressive. It may have just been an impression that I got, but I sensed that their connection, their friendship was strong. I have a feeling that Nara and Sascha's destiny may be linked."

Aurine was about to interrupt, but Tiplee put a hand up to forestall the incoming comment, "Nara will succeed as a Jedi Knight with our without Sascha Whitestar, but I believe that working together, that they can be much more."

Aurine paused, trying to take stock of the conversation, "You received a vision from the Force regarding my apprentice."

"I believe so, Master Brynar. The vision did also involve Nara as well," Tiplee pointed out.

"Then why haven't I received a similar signal from the Force."

The Rishati laughed softly, "Aurine, have you considered you might not currently be the greatest conduit for the Force to flow through right now? Half the Jedi living in this wing of the Temple can sense your distress. You are out of balance."

Aurine bit her lip, Luminara had made a similar comment not too long ago, and now a total stranger was saying the same thing. "I'll admit that the situation with Sascha has had some effect on me as well," she admitted.

"They say that a good Master must be sensitive to the feelings of their apprentice," said Tiplee in a kind tone of voice.

"Though the Master should also be able to maintain a strong countenance through their darkest hours as well," Aurine remarked bitterly.

The Jedi Knight sitting across from her smiled wanly, "I wouldn't be so hard on yourself Aurine, at least you have a connection with Sascha. I'll admit that I don't understand much about my apprentice. I remember the first time I watched her spar with your Padawan. To me, sparring was always a friendly thing, something you did to improve; I would never try to hurt my opponent at all, as we are both Jedi. But I watched Nara and Sascha trading kicks and punches…it looked more like two enemies trying to settle a score with each other, than two friends trying to improve lightsaber technique. I remember that I called a halt to the session, expecting the two of them to glare balefully at each other, but they both smiled and immediately began discussing the mistakes that they made. They understood how to get the best out of each other almost implicitly, but I did not."

"Sascha does have a tendency to get physical in his sparring sessions, he takes after his Master in that way," Aurine replied drolly, certainly she had never had a problem with her Padawan coming back from sparring sessions with bruises. Bruises taught lessons and imbued toughness. The sad fact was that Jedi were often injured while fighting and learning how to maintain composure through pain was a valuable lesson.

"Nara may be my apprentice, and she does learn from me, but I'm no closer to understanding her or forming a relationship with her than I was on my first day of meeting her. I wanted to take a Padawan learner to prove my independence from my sister. After I became a Jedi Knight the Council paired me with my sister more often than I would have liked…and I found myself following old habits again, I felt I had to break the cycle. I thought the best way of doing that was to take an apprentice of my own. Do something to forge my own path."

Tiplee looked thoughtful, "I'm not sure what compelled me to pick Nara as my Padawan, certainly her strength in the Force was impressive, but everyone knew that she would be a challenging apprentice. Though thanks to your Padawan, she is much less fiery and arrogant than she used to be, but those qualities still exist in her. So she can be difficult to deal with at times. But what I sense in her more than anything is a sense of loneliness. She doesn't have a friend or confidant. She doesn't have a support system, and I firmly believe that she needs one."

"And you think Sascha could be that friend for her," Aurine surmised.

"Can you think of anyone better? They already have an existing friendship, all that would need to be done is to push them closer together."

"Which would be perfect if Sascha was his normal self. He's not."

"Yes, but they still can be pushed together. And I think that if my vision was trying to tell me anything, it's that Nara and Sascha are stronger together than they are apart. Both of them are empathic enough to want to help the other, if only they are able to see past their own problems. And I think if we both went on a mission and left them alone, they might be more inclined to help one another." The Rishati shrugged, "It's a Force vision though, I could have misinterpreted it or it could be flat out wrong. The Force rarely deals in certainties. I myself have been misled more than once by visions."

"So we shouldn't rely only on one vision then."

Tiplee nodded in assent, "I agree. But I have a plan."

Aurine felt herself smiling, "You come prepared, Master Tiplee."

"The Force provides guidance. The Jedi provides the plan."

That wasn't a quote Aurine had ever heard before. She supposed that it might have been a piece of personal wisdom, "What is your plan?"

"I've received a mission from the Council. It's an interesting enough mission – I've been assigned to oversee a dispute between the workers of Galix VI and the company that owns the asteroid, Heuristic Mining. Apparently, the dispute threatens to embroil the whole world in turmoil and it needs a steady hand to keep things from boiling over, especially after the CEO of Heuristic Mining was almost assassinated. I need someone who knows how to provide security in a situation that is hostile at best. Your name was brought up."

"By the Council?"

"Yes. Master Windu to be specific."

Aurine was surprised that anyone on the Jedi Council knew her name. The idea that she had been recommend her for a mission seemed unfathomable. Maybe she had impressed Master Windu during their last conversation? It seemed possible, though unlikely.

Still a pertinent question stuck out in her mind, "And you won't be taking Nara on this mission?"

"No. Not because it is dangerous, but because she's fallen behind in her studies." Tiplee smiled ruefully, showing white, pointed teeth, "As brilliant as she is with the Force, she tends not to be a brilliant student."

"I thought that a Padawan's studies were supposed to be done during downtime. I don't even know if Sascha has started his." Aurine remembered hating the coursework that had come with her promotion to Padawan, she had been sure that her days of a student had been behind her. Now, she considered herself to be a permanent student – one that was always learning.

"Well, I know Nara is behind on hers, and that is all that really matters for the moment," said Tiplee.

"Isn't your apprentice likely to be rather unhappy about being left behind?"

The Rishati nodded, "I think she will be less than thrilled."

"So...why are you doing it? If I may inquire," she added hastily, not wanting to offend her guest.

"Because she needs time to be able to reflect on what she is doing. She is growing into a young woman that, if given the right circumstances, will turn into an excellent Jedi Knight. But you cannot do that in one fell swoop, it needs to be a process. And helping her friend Sascha is the start of this process."

Aurine sat back, and evaluated the Jedi sitting across from her. She didn't know much about Tiplee, but she could evaluate the being sitting across from her. The red-skinned Jedi was calm and confident. Poised. And appeared to really believe that what she was offering could help her with Sascha.

"Master Tiplee, I've tried everything I can think of to assist Sascha, if you think that there is even a one-percent chance of this working, I'm onboard." She hesitated, "I think you might be right, leaving my apprentice alone might be the bit of breathing room he needs to sort himself out. One last question though – how can we know that Nara and Sascha will run into each other? Are you just going to tell Nara to find him?"

"I have an idea or two on that front," said Tiplee behind a coy smile.

Aurine generally didn't like people playing coy with her, but there was something about that smile that told her to not inquire further into Tiplee's plan. "I believe that we have a plan then."

Tiplee rose, "Excellent, I'll send you the materials about our mission and inform that Council that you'll be accompanying me. We leave tomorrow, 0600 hours."

Aurine ran through a mental checklist of how quickly she could get ready to leave the Temple. She supposed that she'd only need a few hours. She nodded curtly to her new...friend? Ally? "I will see you then."

The Rishati rose as well, "I'll see you tomorrow."

Tiplee offered a hand, and Aurine shook it. Tiplee's handshake was firm and confident, much like the Jedi Knight herself. Tiplee bowed her head slightly to her, "Thank you for listening to me. Hopefully we will return to two different, but improved Padawans."

"I hope so as well, Master Tiplee."

* * *

Sascha Whitestar was attempting to meditate in his room when he heard the door chime ring. He groaned, feeling his meditation attempt coming to a crashing halt. He lightly slapped the ground in frustration. He was supposed to be coming up with a plan to present to Master Brynar regarding his recovery, and he had about three quarters of a plan, but he was looking for the final quarter to put the whole thing together. But he hadn't found it yet.

He walked to the door, he must have looked like absolute hell, he hadn't slept well at all last night or the last few nights to be honest. He knew that he didn't always keep up his appearance at the best of times, and this was certainly not the best of times. He opened his door to see Master Brynar was outside. Sascha waved her inside, "I'm not quite done compiling my plan, but you can hear what I have so far if you want."

Aurine stayed at the doorway, "That's okay. I'm making a change of plans."

"Um, what? Why?"

"I've accepted a mission, I'll be leaving tomorrow with Master Tiplee. You will not be accompanying me," she said without preamble.

Sascha's heart dropped into his toes, being left behind while his Master went on a mission was about as clear an indication that she did not have any faith in him as there could be. While he knew that he hadn't exactly done much to prove himself to his Master recently, he hadn't been expecting such an obvious rebuke. He found himself staring at the ground and speaking, "I think that is for the best."

"When I get back…we will have a discussion as to your future within the Jedi Order." Sascha sighed heavily at the announcement that he had been expecting. Aurine continued, "I did not want to set a deadline, or to force you to do push yourself beyond what you felt you could do, but I think we both know that this situation cannot go on forever. If you truly want to remain a Jedi and my apprentice, think hard on your future Sascha. If things remain as they are…well, you know what the result will be. I will provide you updates as to when I will return."

"I understand." He scuffed his boot against the floor, "Why the sudden change of plans, Master?"

"You're the one that has always wanted time to figure out your life. Well, here you go. You have complete and utter freedom. Use it wisely."

"I will, Master."

She nodded to him, then turned sharply on her heel and left.

He watched the door close and his Master was gone. Numbly, he returned to his bedroll and sat down. Sascha Whitestar still wasn't sure how he had gotten to this point. While he had not always been a perfect apprentice, he thought he was at least showing promise. That was until Bothawui. Everything since Bothawui had seemed like a blur, and he felt like he had aged years since he had left for that mission. He had just lost so much. Tyra had seemed like the biggest loss at the time, but more and more it seemed like he had lost himself.

He shrugged, went back to his meditation, making little progress on finding himself or what he was supposed to be doing in his life.

Yet that night, for the first time in a long time, he slept peacefully, his dreams not interrupted by nightmares.


	6. Chapter 6: Sorting it Out

**Lord Darth Yoda** \- I took a lot of words to describe something pretty simple, didn't I... Sometimes, writing more is not better (a lesson, I will hopefully learn)

 **thejoker122-** Good point about how quickly things got out of hand for Sascha. It's really been a whirlwind for him since Weliss captured him. But if you think about all the things Sascha has been through in the 2-3 months or so since being a Padawan, it's been a trying period for him.

A/N - So, this chapter went through a drastic change based off a throwaway comment by Lord Darth Yoda in a previous review. I decided that yes, it _would_ be a cool idea if Sascha had a talk with Yoda about his life. Which is great in theory, and then you start writing thousands of words of Yoda dialog. I like dialog, that should be obvious by now, but when Yoda speaks, you have to use that odd grammar of his, and its _super_ annoying to write. Still, I think it came out well. Let me know if you agree/disagree :p.

Anyways, please enjoy the next chapter!

* * *

 **Chapter 6: Sorting it Out**

When Sascha awoke the day after his Master left, he decided that he had slept too much over the past few weeks. He had slept so much that it seemed like he was sleepwalking through his own life. He hadn't reached out and taken control of it. Perhaps, he decided, it was time to change that. And he would try to change it today.

The only question was how he was supposed to do that. He didn't trust the Force. It was supposed to be his ally, a companion, but recently it seemed more like a millstone. Just because he could lift rocks with his mind didn't mean that he was immune to having fears. Fears that he knew were real. He had lost Tyra's friendship, at least for a little while, and he was not prepared for even the possibility of losing someone else close to him. There was just no way he could take it, no way he even wanted to _consider_ it.

He ha thought that he would be prepared to deal with loss. He wasn't. The Jedi Code stated that _there is no death, there is the Force_ , and he had thought that he understood this precept when he was younger, but now he realized that he really did not. Losing Tyra's friendship was the worst thing that had ever happened to him, and while the precept tried to comfort you with the idea that death and loss was just a part of the grand plan of the Force, Sascha found that it did not make it easier to deal with.

He could get over the loss of his best friend; in fact, the pain he felt now was much different from what he had felt just days after breaking up with her. The pain in his heart was still there, but it was lessened. Perhaps, one day it might fade completely. Perhaps one day he could be friends with Tyra without it being unnecessarily complicated. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps... Always perhaps, and never certainty. That was the way of his life recently. And he hated it, to say the least. He wanted to back to the days where he was certain that he wanted to be a Jedi Knight, certain that he would always have Tyra's friendship.

He wanted to go back to the days where he was a naive child.

Sascha found himself looking at the robe that Aurine had bought for him for his birthday. He'd left it hanging in the corner of his room, giving it a place of honor in his room. The robe was lovely, grey with slight hints of teal, and it looked really nice on him, but he hadn't worn it in a long time and he didn't think he would start anytime soon.

Still, something about it was drawing his attention for the moment so he walked over where it was hanging and brushed off some unseen dust from it. He wasn't worthy of this robe, he thought. This robe had been custom made, and Sascha had no idea how Aurine had managed to get this robe made – it wasn't like Jedi had a savings account that they could make purchases from. The fact that Aurine went through all this effort to get something for him made him feel ashamed. His Master was brilliant, but he had failed her. And it was his fault.

Absentmindedly, he read out the inscription that was on the robe, "Warrior of light, beacon in the dark, Sascha of White-star." He sighed and turned away from the robe. Sascha wasn't a warrior of any description. And he certainly was not a beacon in the dark. It actually seemed recently as if the dark had swallowed him whole.

He dressed in his normal grey robe, leaving his immaculate robe hanging peacefully on its hanger, waiting for the day he wouldn't feel like a total fraud if he wore it. He left his room, needing a change of scenery. As he wandered aimlessly around the building he called home, he wondered how much of an effect Weliss' philosophy was having on him. He had been captured by the fallen Jedi and subjected to his unconventional thoughts on Jedi philosophy, several of which had made sense to Sascha.

Weliss had been obsessed with the idea that the Jedi were slaves, both figuratively and literally. Sascha rejected the idea that he was a slave in the literal sense of the word, while he had been taken by the Jedi at a young age, if he wanted to he could resign and walk out the door of the Jedi Temple. Somehow, he didn't think that most slaves got a chance to resign from being a slave, well, except by very dramatic measures.

However, Weliss had also argued that he was a slave to the dogmatic ideals of the Jedi. That, thought Sascha Whitestar, was very true. Certain types of learning were forbidden. Information about the Sith and so-called 'dark' Force techniques was very tightly controlled. Only Jedi Masters sitting on the High Council could access the collection of Sith Holocrons that were held inside a vault in the archives. Sascha didn't have any particular interest in researching the Sith, but it showed that the information available in the archives was only available because someone decided that it could be. Far from being open with their knowledge, the Jedi curated their knowledge carefully.

Everyone had to be forced down one singular, narrow path. There was no room for emotion, for attachment, only listening to the Force and being a conduit for its will. As a Jedi, he was to have no possession besides what the Force provided him. A Jedi was not supposed cling to the past, he snorted, he was certainly failing in that particular tenant. Padawans were also expected to show great respect to their Masters, especially in front of others. He had been taught to never disagree with his Master to the point of argument, and that when they were in discussion with others, Padawans should only address their Masters when they had been addressed themselves.

He was aware that many of the rules were there for a good reason. Certainly, the ban on attachments made sense to him – he had not been able to handle his feelings towards Tyra. In his opinion, all rules should have corollaries. If his Master was doing something wrong, was he supposed to be limited by the Jedi Code to just meekly watch it happen? Why was everything so restrictive?

He shook his head. He had not signed up for this. Unlike any other person his age he did not get his choice of what his future would be. It was be a Jedi Padawan under the tutelage of his Master, prepare for life in the Jedi Service Corps, or leave the Jedi Order entirely. While everyone said that the Jedi Service Corps were an 'honorable' way to live your life as a Jedi, he couldn't see himself being happy living a life as a simple farmer.

But there would be opportunities in a wider galaxy for someone like him. There wasn't a military in the galaxy that wouldn't want him; he could spend a few years as a pilot before inevitably being promoted, likely ending his career as an Admiral. Or, he could pursue academia, even at sixteen he would have no problem picking a University of his choice and gaining admittance. What University would not want a former Jedi apprentice amongst it's undergraduate population?

The benefits to living a civilian life were numerous; he could even have a family of his own. In what he now would admit was a mistake, he had kissed Tyra, and that moment when his lips met hers was etched in his mind. It had felt so right, so natural that his thoughts often drifted back to it. It wasn't as if Jedi were banned from enjoying physical pleasures, there was a ban on attachment, not on kissing, and there was always gossip on which Padawans or even Jedi Knights were currently amorous with each other. Attachments were to be avoided at all costs though.

As he wandered around the Room of a Thousand Fountains, watching water rush over a large grey rock and tumble into a stream that led towards a lower level of the room, he pondered what it meant to be a Jedi. He always knew that it would involve a certain amount of self-sacrifice, but when he was younger he thought there was a certain amount of fun to being a Jedi. You got to visit hundreds of different worlds, interact with the most important of statesmen and arrest the most dangerous of criminals, which sounded like the plot of a good action holo. It had also seemed like a worthy life to lead. Now he wasn't so sure.

He was making his way to his favourite spot in the Room of a Thousand Fountains, a place that had always brought him comfort. It was beside a waterfall, just beside a little collection of vermilion flowers from Bimmiel. The soft tricking of the water had always seemed so calming, so peaceful. There was still no better place to confront the biggest questions in his life. There were lots of minor ones, of course, but the biggest one was whether he, Sascha Whitestar, wanted to be a Jedi. Certainly, he had put in long hours of training to become one, but that wasn't the same as _wanting_ to be one. He figured that instead of endlessly debating it in his own subconscious, that there was a better way to find out.

As he rounded the corner his destination close at hand he saw that instead of being alone in his little place of sanctuary, he would have company. But he was totally surprised to see who was sitting there.

"Master Yoda?" he blurted. "What are you doing here?"

Yoda, who was sitting on a small boulder and letting his legs dangle almost comically off the ground. The Jedi Master appraised him behind those wise, penetrating eyes,"Waiting for you, I am," said Yoda.

That didn't make any sense to Sascha, "Waiting…for me? Why? How did you know I would be here?"

Yoda smiled, "Tell you, I will. Come closer."

Sascha reluctantly got closer to the Grand Master of the Jedi Order, still a bit too shocked to do anything but follow instructions. He found a reasonably comfortable looking rock, sat on it, and focused his attention on Yoda.

Once Yoda seemed sure that he was ready, Yoda snuffed, "Grand Master of the Jedi Order, I am. Think that I won this job in a raffle do you, hmm?"

"I…"

Yoda tapped his gimer stick against the ground, "My job it is to know such things."

"Know what things, Master Yoda?"

"Know about you I do. Questioning your path, you are."

"Who told you?"

Yoda whacked him in the shin with his gimer stick, "Told not, I need to be. Know this, I do."

Sascha rubbed his shin where Yoda had hit him. It hadn't hurt, but he rubbed it nonetheless. "Yes, I'm questioning my path. My Master just left on a mission and I'm here, supposedly figuring my life out." Sascha almost added, 'which I would have been doing right now if you weren't here right now,' but had the good sense not to.

Yoda grunted, "So your Master's fault it is?"

"What! No! She's a great Master."

"Hmm," said Yoda. "A problem, is this."

He looked downward, "I know. I just can't find that part of me that loved being a Jedi anymore. I think it got crushed. I think Tyra took it away from me."

Yoda tapped his stick against the ground again, "Love her, you do." It wasn't a question.

"Yes...I mean my feelings for her are fading, maybe."

"Love. A tough subject for many Jedi, it is," Yoda said, not unkindly.

Sascha blew out a long breath, "I do understand why attachment is banned. I found that I could be pushed and pulled by people because I cared about Tyra too much. I even slipped into using the dark side because of my feelings towards her. I pulled myself back, but...I know now that if I kept loving Tyra, the dark side could always tempt me."

Yoda's ears drooped, "Lies, the dark side shows us. Taunts us, it does. Resist it, a Jedi must."

"I won't ever use the dark side ever again," Sascha promised. "But why do we have to resist our feelings? Aren't they natural?"

Yoda swirled his gimer stick as if he was stirring a soup, "Accept our feelings a Jedi must. Understand them, control them, be aware of them, he must. A Jedi must only answer to the Force, not himself."

He snorted derisively, "No offence, Master Yoda, but that basically tells me to just repress my emotions. Is the Jedi Order full of people who are emotionally repressed? It doesn't sound like something I want to be a part of."

Yoda nodded slowly, "Misunderstanding me, you are. Your Master, repressed is she?"

He reflected on Aurine. Emotionally repressed didn't seem to be a word that could be used to describe her...ever. "No, I don't think so."

"What about your friends?"

"I don't think they are exactly repressed either," he admitted. Doro and Trigg in particular seemed to be the opposite of repressed.

Yoda tapped him lightly on the shin with his stick, "Learned the lesson, they have. Time for you, it now is."

"What lesson? What have I not learned?"

Yoda sighed and closed his eyes for a moment, "Balance."

"Explain please."

"Not something I can tell you, this is. Something you must _experience_."

Sascha stood up as his frustration boiled over, "Is this another one of your riddles, Master Yoda? Because if it is, I don't have the time or patience for one of them right now."

Yoda took his outburst stoically, "Then lost yourself, you have."

"I know! That's the problem!"

Yoda, ever patient, continued to just sit on his rock, swirling his stick slowly, "Remember who you were, you should."

Sascha threw his hands in the air, "Remember...who I was? How exactly I am supposed to do that? Go back in time, maybe?"

"Sit," said Yoda.

Sascha sat without thinking about it. Had Yoda used the Force on him? Or did Yoda just have that sort of power in his voice? "How did you..."

"Used the Force, I did."

"But I didn't sense..."

Yoda smiled slightly, amused at his reaction, "When eight hundred years old you are, a few tricks you learn."

Sascha calmed himself down, awed by the power that Yoda had at his fingertips. He smiled ruefully, "Sorry Master Yoda...but I don't know what I'm doing or who I am anymore."

"Last time we talked, remember you?"

"After the Apprentice Tournament," said Sascha.

"Remember what you said to me, do you?"

The young human blinked, trying to think about what Yoda could be referring to. "You named me brightest light of the Apprentice Tournament."

Yoda grunted in affirmation, "True it was then, true it is now. Said something else to me you did."

Sascha reflected for a moment, remembering that conversation, "I said something like 'I'll always be a Jedi. That my life was dedicated to the ideals of the Jedi, whether I was in the Order or not."

A small smile appeared on Yoda's aged lips, "True now, true then."

He hesitated, "I'm not sure it is."

"Changed, what has?"

"I finally saw what life is like as a Jedi. It wasn't like how I imagined it being. It's easy to be idealistic from the sidelines, and much harder to do so when you get in the trenches."

Yoda nodded but said nothing, "A war you are fighting?" inquired Yoda gently.

He waved Yoda's comment away, "A poor choice of metaphor. But the fact remains, that if I have to keep letting go of the people I care about to be a Jedi, I'm not sure I want to be that person. I care about my friends, Master Yoda. That's a part of me that I'm sure of."

Yoda waited for a couple of long moments before speaking. "Love one person, you cannot. Love everyone, you can."

"That doesn't make sense, Master Yoda."

The wizened Jedi Master smiled, "No? Yoda does."

Sascha looked incredulously at the Jedi Master, "You love everyone?"

Yoda's eyes searched out his, "Every Jedi."

Sascha, even though he was sitting, almost fell over and was stunned into silence.

"Over my lifetime many friends lost, have I. Many friends gained, have I. Many students trained, I have. Many students gone, they have. This is the life Yoda lives. Pain and loss. But love also. Know you how many friends you can lose in eight hundred years?"

Sascha shook his head.

"A great many," Yoda cackled, somehow amused by the idea. "Each one, a great loss." Yoda rapped at his ankle again with this gimer stick, "But what should Yoda have done? Given up? Given in? Become bitter? Never made friends again?"

The young Padawan was on very uncertain ground in this conversation, "I…don't know."

"Tell you what I did, I will. Filled his heart with love, Yoda did. Love you, love your friends, love your Master, Yoda does."

Sascha sat back, stunned. He hadn't even considered how many friends that Yoda must have had over his hundreds of years of living. Friends that had passed on. Heck, out of the dozens and dozens of the Padawans that Yoda had trained over the years, only a few if any, remained. Yet Yoda still made the time to teach a class of Initiates each year and take a personal interest in every Jedi that set foot in the Temple. Even though he knew that he would outlive most of them.

So to Yoda, each Jedi that died, whether by natural causes or otherwise, was someone that Yoda knew, had watched grow up and in many cases, he had been the person to cut off their Padawan braid, a seminal moment in every Jedi's life. It was as if Yoda was as much part of the Jedi Order as the Jedi Temple itself, and all the other Jedi just came and went, but still Yoda remained.

Sascha couldn't even fathom losing all the people he had grown up with. He was having a hard enough time coming to terms with losing Tyra's friendship, something that didn't even need to be permanent. Yoda had lost hundreds of friends, but here he was spending time with him, someone that he would probably outlive. While most would have become bitter and disenfranchised, or become cold and heartless, Yoda had apparently chosen the opposite, to love each and every person that called him or herself a Jedi.

Including him, Sascha Whitestar.

So, while maybe he couldn't be _in_ love with Tyra, maybe there was a way to redefine their relationship, while still affirming that they cared for each other. After all, if the Grand Master was doing it, surely he could too. And wasn't that what Yoda was getting at here? At an oblique angle, surely, but that was the point, wasn't it? To not be bitter and closed off, but instead fill your heart with love?

"I…don't know what to say, Master Yoda."

Yoda tapped his stick softly against the ground a couple of times, "Nothing to say, there is."

Sascha waited for another few moments, "Maybe I should do what I should have in the first place, what advice do you have for me, Master Yoda?"

"Hurting you are. Without cause it is not. A bright light for the Jedi Order you should remain. Not let you go without a fight, I will. Your Master feels similar, think I."

He bowed his head politely, "Thank you, Master Yoda. But I was asking for what I should do."

Yoda shrugged in a casual motion, "Trust in the Force, should you. Trust in yourself, should you."

"I...don't know how anymore."

Yoda grunted and got off the stone he had been sitting on. He moved methodically towards him and rapped him on the shin again, "Forget yourself, you have not. Forgotten the Force, you have not either."

"But..."

"No more I have to say. Do the rest, you must."

Sascha turned as Yoda walked past him slowly, "Can't you be a little more specific?"

Yoda sighed, a long, tired sigh, "Remember you, the first time you used the Force?"

"Not really."

"Young, you were?"

"Of course." Sascha had memories of being four or five and playing with the Force. All he had used the Force for in those days was playing.

"Trust the Force then, did you?" inquired Yoda.

Sascha smiled widely, "I barely knew what the Force _was_ Master Yoda. I don't even know if I understood what the word trust was."

Yoda returned his smiled, "Then like a child again, you must be."

"But..."

Yoda waved his hand, "No more to say, have I. Important places Yoda has to be."

He felt guilty instantly, here Yoda was speaking to Sascha Whitestar, one of the least important Padawans in the Jedi Order, and here he was asking for more time with the Grand Master, when Yoda had already been more than generous with it.

Yoda tapped his stick on the ground again, "Least important Padawan you are not, Jedi Whitestar."

Sascha was about to ask how Yoda knew how he was thinking that, but decided that it might have been the stupidest question in the history of stupid questions. "Thank you, Master Yoda," he said.

Yoda paused, nodded respectfully to him and then continued on his way. Sascha watched him go in amazement. Amazed at the strength of character that Yoda had. Amazed at how much power was in that tiny frame. Amazed at how he knew to be here, waiting for him. And he was truly in awe of how Yoda had kept going through more than eight hundred years of life without becoming bitter.

With his favourite spot in the Room of a Thousand Fountains now empty, he went and claimed that spot. He chewed over Yoda's statement. How did one exactly go about being a child again? "Well, when you were a child, things were much simpler," he said out loud.

It was true though, when he was a child he hadn't worried about things like whether he and Tyra could be friends. He hadn't worried about his place in the galaxy. He hadn't worried about...well...anything.

The only thing that Sascha could remember doing as a child was just playing for the sake of playing. It wasn't sparring to improve technique, though he enjoyed that. It wasn't learning piloting skills in the simulator, though he enjoyed that as well. No, a child just _played_.

One memory from his childhood seemed to stick out to him. As a reward for being 'good little Jedi,' he had been promised to be shown the 'secret' of levitation by a Jedi Master. He had been told to close his eyes and concentrate. Like the good little boy he had been, he had closed his eyes, and when he opened them, he had found himself floating a few inches off the ground. While he now knew that the Jedi Master had just been lifting him with the Force, he remembered the feeling of exhilaration he felt as he was floating off the ground, defying gravity. He remembered feeling like he could literally do anything. The fact that he could not was yet to be etched into his psyche.

Sascha decided that he wanted to be that child again, just for a moment. While he couldn't actually levitate himself with the Force, there _was_ a technique that allowed a Jedi to defy gravity for short periods of time. It was called rising meditation, and it was attainable only once deeply submerged in the Force. Yet, if done correctly, this form of meditation allowed practitioners to rise several meters off the ground.

He had never done it himself, he had always considered himself to be not powerful enough in the Force to do something like that. But, it might be fun to try...

What exactly did he have to lose anyway?

He gathered the Force around him, pushing himself deeper into the current then he had in a long time, simply and freely embracing his heritage as a child of the Force. For the first time in a long time, he meditated, letting the Force wash over him. He meditated like a child would, not bringing in any worries or fears, but a simple purity of spirit. And for the first time in a long time, he found peace.

When he returned to full awareness of his senses, he found that he was floating half a foot the air. The shock at unintentionally lifting himself off the ground like that caused his concentration to break, and that sent him falling towards the ground. He had enough training and wherewithal to turn his short fall into a vaguely graceful tumble that stung his hands and knees.

Apparently, he had just done rising meditation without thinking about it or without really knowing the technique to performing rising meditation. And for the first time in what felt like weeks, Sascha laughed. He laughed loud and hard. He laughed so hard that tears started falling down his face. He only managed to stop when he saw a Jedi walking nearby, staring at him oddly, clearly wondering if he had lost his sanity.

He took a long moment to compose himself and then decided that he'd done enough finding himself for one day. As he turned to go back to his room, there was a little more spring in his step and his boots didn't nearly feel as heavy as they had. When he got back to his room, he looked at the robe that Aurine had bought for him, hanging pristine in the corner. He decided that he had soiled his current robe with his tears, so he shucked that one off, and put on his gray and teal robe, smiling as he did it.


	7. Chapter 7: Tests, Part One

**Lord Darth Yoda** \- Thank you for the idea, the chapter really needed something and I was totally happy to rewrite it. You are right with Yoda, he'll tell you what you need to hear and he's done this enough times that he's got it down to a science (seriously, dude's probably given that exact talk like 20 times in his life already). I also think that its basically cannon that Yoda spends a lot of his time teaching the younglings, so I'm happy to show him lend Sascha a helping hand here. And yeah, I think Sascha has been corrected on to the right path, however I don't think anyone told Nara so she's certainly going to play a role (though she probably won't have to beat him up).

 **thejoker122-** I think that you said that better than I ever could!

 **SpeechBubbleMe -** Thanks for taking the time to review! Please feel free to use, uh...basically anything from this fic - though if you want to shoot me a PM, please do so, I'd be happy to help out. Btw, I liked your fic - I'll be dropping by to review when I carve out the time!

A/N - Nothing from me.

Anyways, please enjoy the next chapter!

* * *

 **Chapter 7: Tests, Part One**

Sascha Whitestar swam alone in a pool in the Room of a Thousand Fountains. He had always found that swimming was a calming exercise, it was just you, the water, and whatever arbitrary goal you were competing against, whether that was trying to swim the quickest that you could or seeing how long you could hold your breath, it was always a singularly individual pursuit.

If he had a choice, he wouldn't have been swimming alone. He had fond memories of swimming with his clanmates when he was younger, just being stupid and foolish and playful. He regretted the way he had treated his friends recently, he knew that he had probably done some minor damage to his friendship with both Doro and Trigg. He'd make it up to them, somehow. He would have done so immediately had the two Corelians not both been away from the Temple on missions. He'd found that out not because they came and told him, but because he had looked it up in the database. That stung. Usually his friends would come and see him before they left on a mission, but he really didn't blame them for not coming to see him, as he was pretty sure he had been rotten company recently.

After completing another lap, he held on to the edge of the pool, breathing hard. He considered himself a strong swimmer, but today he felt winded after completing less than his usual number of laps. He was sure that it was because he was not exactly in the best shape of his life, after more than a month of doing barely any training. He would have to work to get back into shape, there was no Force technique for that. He didn't think that he would have a problem in doing so, after all, with Master Brynar away on a mission, he had nothing but free time to exercise.

Overall, he was feeling…better. His talk with Master Yoda had helped, and helped to restore some confidence in himself. Even being away from his Master had helped a little. He knew that she wanted to give him the maximum amount of time to get back to his old self, but even that small amount of pressure had felt crushing. Still, last night he had slept peacefully again, and his morning meditations had been as normal as he could remember. He didn't think that he was close to being 'back' yet. But it seemed like he might be able to get there.

The idea of becoming a Jedi Knight didn't seem to be such a millstone anymore. He still harbored some doubts about whether he was fit to be a Jedi, but he was pretty sure that he wanted to continue his apprenticeship with Master Brynar when she returned. He would at least try. He owed himself that. He owed Master Yoda that. He owed the galaxy that.

Pulling himself out of the pool, he dried himself off and headed back to his room, intent on going to the archives and asking if he could help any of the staff. He wanted to do some productive work after being useless for so long, and nothing made him happier than researching for a fellow Jedi. Even throughout his recent ordeal, the archives had been a place that made him feel at home. He didn't have to use the Force to be helpful in the archives, he just needed his brain, and he would always trust that.

In his room, he changed out of his wet tunic, into a clean set of his Jedi robes, and was heading out the door and down the hallway when he heard a voice from behind him,"Sascha! Wait!"

He turned around to look at who was calling for him and saw that Nara Nalto was trying to flag him down. Nara was a year younger than he was, but they had become Padawans at the same time. Appearance wise, She had light-purple skin along with montrals and lekku that were a darker purple, accented with deep red markings. She wore a basic beige Jedi robe, with the sleeves cut off above the elbow. Sascha thought Nara was vaguely cute, maybe in the top half of female Jedi around their age if you sorted by attractiveness, but probably nothing beyond that. Not that he was particularly interested, of course.

But much more important than that, Nara was his friend. And she had proved it by trying to help him out when he had been depressed and withdrawn. And he needed to pay her back for that.

He stopped in his tracks and bowed to his friend, "Hi Nara."

Nara closed the distance between them and smiled at him, "Have you remembered how to smile again?"

He grinned, "I only forgot for a little while."

Nara punched him in the shoulder, not hard but with enough force behind it that he felt it, "You were acting like a real jerk for the past month, you know."

"I know."

"You hid in your room and avoided me."

"Yeah."

"Your Master and everyone is worried about you."

Sascha held his arms out towards the Togruta, "I know, Nara. I'm sorry."

Nara lightly bopped him on the head with an open palm, "I accept your apology…"

"Thanks, Nara…"

"On one condition."

"A conditional acceptance of an apology?" he asked incredulously.

Nara ignored him, "My condition is that you come follow me right now, no questions asked."

"Can I…?"

Nara shook her head vehemently, "Nope."

Sascha didn't exactly love it when surprises were sprung on him, but supposed that he owed Nara. Besides, although Nara was an impetuous scamp, he doubted very much that she wanted to get him in trouble. "Okay Nara, lead the way."

Nara nodded in approval and spun on her heel, reversing directions. Sascha scrambled to catch up to her, "So, where are we going little Togruta?"

The Togruta shoved him lightly, "Little? I'm almost as tall as you are little human."

Sascha waved a hand dismissively, "Your Montrals don't count towards your height. That'd just be cheating."

Nara laughed lightly, "My Montrals are coming in nicely I'll have you know." It was true, he had to admit, the dark purple and red Montrals on top of her head were beginning to look like the hollow horns of an adult Togruta and it made her look more like a predator the older she got.

"Okay, I admit it, we are almost the same height now, does this mean I have to stop calling you little Togruta?" he teased.

Nara chuckled, "Unless you are going to get another growth spurt, I'm afraid so."

Sascha was pretty sure that he'd, unfortunately, topped out at his below average height, "Aww rats, I'll have to come up with another pet name for you."

"Or you could…not."

The two walked in silence for a moment, until Nara broke it, "So our Masters are on a mission together."

"Yeah," he responded. "Kind of odd, as I thought that Master Tiplee worked most often with her sister, Tiplar."

"She does, but I guess she changed it up this time. Maybe if our Masters get along, they'll go on more missions together, which would mean that we could go on a mission together," Nara replied hopefully.

"I'd like that," he said honestly. Nara would be an interesting Jedi to have around on a mission. And if they were on a mission together, _he_ would be the senior Padawan, which was not something he could say about many other Padawans. That potentially meant that he could boss Nara around "Why'd your Master leave you behind?"

Nara's buoyant confidence seemed to dissipate in an instant, "I don't want to talk about it, okay."

Sascha wondered what sort of landmine he'd inadvertently stepped on. He decided that he wouldn't probe further. As they walked to…wherever they were going, Nara appeared to recover a degree of her normal confidence, but she remained slightly closed off to him.

Sascha froze when he realized that the Togruta was leading him to one of the main sparring rooms, Nara entered and he reluctantly followed. Oblivious to his discomfort Nara spoke, "We are a bit early, but Master Drallig told me to find a partner and come to this sparring room, so I assume it will be for something interesting."

Sascha looked downwards, "Nara, I'm…in any shape to be sparring right now."

Nara glanced around to check that they were still alone, then reached out and grabbed the collar of his robe, pulling him so close to her that he could feel her breath on his face. "Listen, lasers for brains, Master Drallig told me I could choose any Padawan in the Temple to be my partner for this, and I chose you. I don't know what has been bothering you these past weeks, but there isn't another Padawan that I'd rather partner with. So are you with me? Or are you going to make me look like an idiot in front of Master Drallig?"

"Nara, I haven't practiced combat for more than a month, I'm physically out of shape – I'm not the person you want to partner with. I didn't even bring my lightsaber!"

"I know!" Nara exploded. "Do you think I'm blind? Still I want to do this with you, I thought you were my friend, Sascha. I guess those were just words. Fine, I'll do it alone like I always have." Nara released her grip on his collar and walked away, radiating pain and sadness in the Force.

Sascha could see that his friendship with Nara was imploding right in front of his eyes. While he wasn't as close with the Togruta as the friends he had grown up with, her friendship did mean something to him. He was grateful for the faith she was putting in him as well. He had always thought of himself as someone who always supported his friends, and that was all Nara was asking for here. She was not for him to be brilliant or to do something that was beyond him, just partner with her for a training exercise. He decided he at least owed her that.

"Nara…wait."

The Togruta turned to face him again, "You want to do this?"

"I'll try Nara, that's all I can promise."

Nara nodded approvingly, "That is all I'm asking for." She glanced around coyly, "But we are a few minutes early, so let's warm up first."

He bent his knees deeply, "Yeah I could use some stretching time."

"Stretching? Force, you are so boring, Sascha. Why don't we do something more interesting," Nara did a little pirouette, "Dance with me Padawan Whitestar." He hesitated, but Nara would not be deterred, she simply grabbed his hand and pulled him to the centre of the room. "Alderaanian Waltz, full tempo, let's go."

"But there is no music," Sascha protested in vain.

"You've got a datapad, find some and put it on." Sascha grumbled and found an appropriate piece of music at what he'd consider a normal tempo for an Alderaanian Waltz. Nara listened for a half-second, " _That_ is your choice of music? It's so slow! Come on, I could dance at that tempo when I was eight, try something a bit more challenging."

"Yes, Master Nalto," he replied sarcastically.

"Master Nalto, I like the sound of that," said Nara, deliberately choosing to ignore his sarcasm.

"Blasted little Togruta," Sascha muttered under his breath.

Sascha searched his datapad chose a song called 'Whiplash' which was in a very unique time signature of 7/4. It was also incredibly up tempo.

Nara listened for a moment and then laughed, "Waltzes are supposed to be in a ¾ time signature, you doofus. Or did you fail music class?"

He feigned ignorance, "I thought you wanted a challenge?"

Nara put her index finger on her chin, "Alright then, but if you throw up on my boots I'm going to beat you senseless. My Master bought these for me."

He rolled his eyes, "What if you throw up on mine?"

"I'll clean your laundry for a week," Nara said without missing a beat.

An Alderaanian Waltz was fairly simple when you boiled it down to its roots, the two partners stood across from each other when the dance started. Males rotated to the left and females to the right and the partners were only supposed to face one another on the same beat of the music. With a 7/4 time signature, and a quick tempo, the dance for this particular song was going to be…interesting. The two Padawans raised their hands and began to dance. It was difficult to keep the right tempo and whirl quickly without either losing your balance, losing the tempo or being sick. By necessity, the two Padawans linked themselves through the Force to make it easier to coordinate. Sascha found it easy to latch on to Nara's bright presence in the Force, she was strong and confident, never seeming to hesitate for a moment. They twirled around at a blistering pace, seeing eye to eye after every beat of the song. And when each Jedi stumbled, the other quickly assisted them back to the correct tempo. After the end of the song, both Padawans had to lie down to stop the room from spinning, laughing at the absurdity of what they had just done.

Both Padawans were lying on the ground and still a bit dazed when Jedi Master Cin Drallig entered the room. Master Drallig was known as one of the best pure swordsman in the Jedi Order and he was one of the Jedi Masters that taught lightsaber combat in the Temple. Sascha himself had learned under his tutelage, though he would probably not be considered to be amongst his best students. The Jedi Master's nickname in the Temple was 'the Troll,' for his less than handsome physical features, and stern manner, yet Sascha had a profound respect for his skills and his ability to teach. Tall, with craggy features, the human was an imposing figure as he peered down at the prone Padawans.

A faint smile appeared on his face, "Good, Padawans should be meditating with every spare moment given to them."

Nara and Sascha staggered to their feet, both of them still dizzy from their dance. But they at least tried to maintain a degree of poise in front of the Jedi Master. Politely, Cin didn't seem to mind that the two Padawans were still obviously swaying on their feet, "We'll wait for the others I've invited to get here before I reveal the drill you'll be participating in." The Jedi Master paused, "Though for the sake of curiosity, I must ask what you were doing before I got here."

"We may have turned up the tempo on an Alderaanian Waltz a bit too high, and well afterwards…we needed to lie down," Nara said, the red accents on her montrals and lekku turning brighter in embarrassment as she spoke.

"Ah, to be young again," Cin muttered just loud enough that both Padawans were sure that he meant for his comment be overheard.

A minute later, after the two Jedi had recovered their equilibrium, the two Padawans and the Jedi Master were joined by four young Jedi. Sascha identified them as Initiates, none of them had a Padawan braid entwined in their hair and all of them looked to be around the age of twelve or thirteen. "You are late," Master Drallig said to the four Initiates, brooking no argument. The young Jedi all murmured an apology.

Sascha analyzed the four young Jedi. The first was human; he was tall and had mahogany coloured skin. He seemed to wear his Initiates robe with a sense of contempt, as if it was a skin he would soon shed. Next in line was an orange-skinned Elomin, his hair perfectly coiffed and his Jedi robes in immaculate condition. Sascha had to admit his ivory horns were quite striking. The third was a Trunsk, and like most of his brethren, he was a stout, fur-covered biped with a wide, tusked mouths, vestigial horns, and sharp fighting claws that gave off a fearsome appearance. The last Initiate was a slender Devaronian with light brown fur and blond hair with black streaks in it. She evaluated everyone in the room with hard blue eyes and seemed to hold herself a little apart from her fellow Initiates. An interesting collection.

Master Drallig got started right away, "Initiates, I'd like you to meet some of our newer Padawans." Cin gestured towards him, "Sascha Whitestar is the Padawan of Jedi Knight Aurine Brynar and he has performed admirably in some very difficult circumstances," Sascha bowed politely to acknowledge the praise.

Cin continued, gesturing at the Togruta, "Nara Nalto is the Padawan of Jedi Knight Tiplee and she was the winner of the most recent apprentice tournament, an honour that I know that all of you are hoping to win. Rare it is, to be so talented at so young an age." Nara bowed to the Jedi Master as well, seeming to be very pleased by the praise.

"We don't get an introduction?" commented the Elomin petulantly.

The Jedi Master rolled his eyes, "I was going to give you a more elaborate introduction, but since you cannot even wait to be praised, I'll refrain." Sascha and Nara snickered to themselves quietly. Cin Drallig was not the sort of Jedi to interrupt when he was speaking. The tall Jedi Master continued, "Padawans Whitestar and Nalto, meet Kerk, Lassiter, Quane, and Miriam," he said indicating the human, the Elomin, the Trunsk and then the Devaronian respectively.

The tall human Jedi Master stepped to the middle of the sparring room, "This drill is simple, the four Initiates will team up to face off against the two Padawans. Lightsabers set to burn, please. To keep things dynamic, if an Initiate receives a burn they will be out for 45 seconds, if a Padawan receives a burn they are out for 30 seconds, so if either side gets an advantage, they will need to work quickly to secure a victory. If either side is able to eliminate the other, they are the victors. Understood?"

All the Jedi nodded in the affirmative, and Sascha went to a nearby rack that had training lightsabers and selected one that was about the right size for his hand. A training lightsaber only had the 'burn' setting while other lightsabers had to be set to a specific setting to produce a burn on contact, rather than simply cutting as a lightsaber did at full power.

He ignited the blade so that he could readjust the yellow-hued blade to his preferred length. Generally, because he was relatively short, he liked having a slightly shorter than usual blade as well. He then rejoined Nara on one side of the sparring chamber. The two stared at their diverse opposition, and waited for the signal from Master Drallig to start. "I'm not sure I'm in the best shape to fight against four opponents," he whispered to Nara.

Nara gave him an encouraging look, "It's just four Initiates, Sascha. A couple of years ago I was on the other side of this drill, the two Padawans beat us so badly, I don't think I'll ever forget it. Follow me. Trust me."

There was a certainty, a confidence to Nara that he appreciated, and there seemed to be something about combat that the Togruta seemed to relish. "I've got your back, my friend."

"Begin," declared Master Drallig.

Kerk, the tall young human, stepped forward from the clump of Initiates, his manner suggesting nothing but arrogance, "Togruta, you won the apprentice tournament last year? I want to test myself against you. Fight me, one on one."

Sascha was about to blurt that this was hardly the intention of the drill when Nara silenced him with a look and stepped towards Kerk, "I accept, Initiate Kerk. At least I took the time to remember your name," taunted Nara.

The two circled, the Initiate's green blade striking cautiously against Nara's blue. Sascha's own weapon was still not yet turned on, he merely watched as Nara took the measure of her opponent. Kerk attacked first in an attack that was obviously well-practiced. Nara had no problem swatting it away. The two kept up their circling movement. When Kerk circled to where he would be in front of him, Sascha simply ignited the yellow blade of his training lightsaber and slashed him across the arm while he was trying to duel Nara.

The mahogany-skinned Initiate turned to him in a furor, "What was that!"

Sascha kept calm, "That's called the real world, Initiate. We were given the rules of engagement, I'm just living up to them."

Kerk deflated, "But the Padawan…gave her word as a Jedi…that it would be one versus one."

He shrugged nonchalantly, "I didn't. Better luck next time."

Instead of attacking the two Padawans as they chatted, or assuming a defensive position, the three Initiates were far too spread out as Nara and Sascha advanced on them, looking to use the advantage of taking out one Initiate for 45 seconds. Nara simply chose her next victim, in this case choosing the fierce looking Trunsk and demonstrated why she was a Padawan and he was still an Initiate. By the time his compatriots reacted, Sascha had blocked their path, while Nara polished off the defenses of the Trunsk, neatly carving her blue blade across the Trunsk's knee.

Now two versus two and with more than twenty seconds before Kerk could rejoin the fray, the two Padawans smiled and launched themselves into the fray. Nara went fully on the attack, blistering the younger Devaronian Jedi with her deadly speed. While the Togruta was putting Marian on the defensive, Sascha while Sascha simply interposed himself in between him and the remaining Initiate – the Elomin, Lassiter.

To his credit, Lassiter tried to come to the defence of the beleaguered Devaronian, who was parrying Nara's attacks just centimetres from her skin. But all Sascha needed to do was not let that happen. Even out of shape, Sascha Whitestar had the benefit of drawing of months of one on one tutoring from a Jedi Knight and such obvious mistakes in positioning and footwork were something he could exploit. The Elomin stepped forward, but Sascha simply knocked his blade out of the way before slashing him across his unprotected flank at almost the exact same moment Nara cut her blue blade across the Devaronian's wrist.

"Padawans, one. Initiates, no score," declared Nara.


	8. Chapter 8: Tests, Part Two

**Lord Darth Yoda** \- Well someone has to keep the younglings egos in check. I think Anakin was the best at it though :p. Nara's genuine - and you'll get to see that while Sascha has had limited time with Nara, that time has meant a lot to her, so she's trying to pay him back. She's already pretty good at getting Sascha to break out of his shell - and as you said, reverse psychology seemed to be effective!

 **thejoker122-** Good point about Sascha learning from his past - he might be slightly depressed but he's not stupid! And Nara's certainly a different character to spend time with, a bit more rambunctious and enthusiastic than most. She's a fun character to write and she gets quite a bit of depth over the course of this book.

 **SpeechBubbleMe** \- Sascha will come to peace and get over Tyra. I'm not going to spoil anything, but I'll say by the time that this fic is over, he'll have dealt with it. And yeah, Nara's definitely helping Sascha - its always nice to have one slightly obnoxious friend that drags you out to do things when you'd rather sit in your room and be depressed.

A/N - New PoV for this chapter - I don't think it'll take a genius to figure out who it is. I play around a lot more with PoVs in this fic and for the better I think.

Anyways, please enjoy the next chapter!

* * *

 **Chapter 8: Tests, Part Two**

"I've been running this drill for years now, but never have I seen such a putrid performance from a group of Initiates," remarked Master Drallig. Despite the harshness of the words uttered by the Jedi Master, Cin Drallig did not raise the tone of his voice. He simply didn't need to. "Jedi work together. How do you expect to beat two Padawans as four individuals?" The grouped Initiates looked downcast, some of them rubbing where their defences had been pierced by the blades of the two Padawans, "I'll give you a minute to discuss amongst yourselves. Perhaps you can come up with an actual strategy to use."

Nara Nalto found herself grinning, a couple of years ago she had been on the other side of a similar tongue-lashing from Master Drallig, one that she had fully deserved. She had been thirteen and thought that she would be chosen to be a Padawan very soon. Certainly, she'd had many Masters and Knights come and talk to her to try and evaluate her skills. Looking back she had been so…arrogant, even going so far as to intentionally perform poorly when being evaluated by 'lesser' Jedi Knights. She had figured with her talents that she deserved at least a Jedi Master to be her mentor or at least a Knight with potential to make the rank of Jedi Master one day. She had been so arrogant and petty, it annoyed her to even think about the person that she had been.

Back then, she had been a part of the team of four Initiates, sparring against two Padawans. And she knew she was the strongest of the four Initiates, so she figured that she wouldn't need their help at all, for she was Nara Nalto, a Togruta destined to be one of the most powerful Jedi of her generation. That idea was laughable now to fifteen year old Nara Nalto, but it was how she had thought back then.

During the drill, she had squared off against one of the two Padawans. She had attacked in a basic pattern, but one that she had mastered totally and usually could overwhelm anyone she sparred with. She got halfway through the pattern when the Padawan counterattacked. One moment she had been preparing a diagonal slice, with her lightsaber, the next thing she remembered was being on the ground moaning incoherently and being asked by Master Drallig if she was okay. Her opponent had hit her with a simple, basic kick, an attack meant to disrupt her pattern, not to injure her or end the fight as it did. But she had been so overconfident that she hadn't bothered to defend his kick. Stupidly, she had moved directly into the path of his leg, and his boot caught her square in the temple, knocking her unconscious for a brief moment. She had ended up in the Halls of Healing for three days afterwards nursing her wounded pride (and a minor concussion.)

So a chance to be on the other side of this drill was a privilege, and a good performance meant that she could erase her embarrassing past and hopefully show some of these Initiates they were not as ready to be Padawans as they thought. Certainly, she saw little bits of her old, arrogant self in all of her opponents.

Her only concern was that Sascha seemed to be really out of shape. She had no idea what was really going on with him, only whispered rumors that she had chosen to ignore, but clearly his training had slipped significantly. Sascha had never been the most gifted of fighters, but today he was slower than usual and seemed to lack that usual little extra spark that he usually had, the one that made him better than his below-average talent with the Force. There was something hesitant about him, he was usually so open and free with his emotions, now he seemed to be slightly closed off, even reserved. She'd talk to him afterwards she decided, Sascha was probably her closest friend, not that they were all that close, but she didn't have many friends, and if she could help him, she would.

All that mattered for the moment is that they had a strong connection through the Force and a solid understanding of how the other fought, they knew how to fight together, something that the Initiates clearly did not.

At the moment, the young Jedi were grouped together to discuss what they did wrong, but Nara sensed that they still had not come to an accord as to how they should fight together. Despite their quick loss, they seemed to still want to be individuals. That wasn't a problem with her and Sascha – as Padawans they knew how to work with others, specifically their Masters. She tapped Sascha on the shoulder, "Round two," she said, grinning at him, "I think this might be a bit harder than the last time."

"I'll follow your lead," he said deferentially. Sascha Whitestar was the best type of teammate, one that would simply follow _her_ orders. While some would see that as arrogance, she would have had no problem following Sascha's lead in something that he was better than her at. Nara knew that she probably overestimated her own abilities, but she wasn't arrogant enough (anymore) to think that she was automatically better than her peers. She was just better at combat than Sascha. Sascha would probably even agree if she brought it up.

Master Drallig indicated that the drill was to begin again, this time the Initiates quickly stepped forward, hoping to surround the two of them. Sascha immediately started backing off, playing for space to manoeuver in, but sheheld an arm out, indicating that he should hold his ground. Sascha cast a surprised glance in her direction, but she knew that while being surrounded seemed bad, there were opportunities to be found as well. Sascha followed her lead took up a position slightly off of her left shoulder, protecting her flank.

The Initiates surrounded them, and she and Sascha moved into a back-to-back position, each literally protecting the others back. Even though they were surrounded, Nara still wasn't worried in the slightest. The Initiates had no leader, and each of them was looking at the other to see who would make the first move. The obvious play was to attack together, but for that to happen they had to trust in each other, and they clearly did not.

Analyzing their formation, Nara noticed that the Devarionian, Miriam, held herself a little too far from the Initiates she was beside. She clearly didn't have any faith in her fellow compatriots to protect her flanks. That was something she could take advantage of. The only question left was who to attack. Miriam? While attacking the teammate that seemed to be the most ill at ease in working with the others seemed to make sense, they were probably better off keeping her around as long as possible. Why eliminate the weak link so early?

Nara instead chose to attack the Elomin, Lassiter, who was off to Miriam's left. Her quick, probing attack was easily parried, but the response from Miriam, to whom she had left her flank open to, was too late in arriving. To cover her advance, Sascha swatted away a pair of lightsaber blades, while she tried to take advantage of the lack of teamwork between Initiates. Seconds later she was rewarded, as Lassiter attempted a risky ploy, attempting to leap over her with a Force-imbued jump. It would have been a good plan, if Miriam had understood what the Elomin wanted to do and kept her busy, but the two were out of sync and she easily used the Force to yank downward on the leaping Elomin, putting him in range of her lightsaber, which smacked into his flank with a satisfying sizzle. Miriam realized far too late that there had been an opening and had merely whiffed it.

Nara then had to turn her attention to the increasing desperation she sensed from Sascha. With her attention focused on Miriam and Lassiter, Sascha had been fending off Kerk and Quane. Kerk was using his height and general ranginess well, keeping out of Sascha's range while the bulldog-esque Quane was pressuring Sascha relentlessly with powerful attacks from his compact frame. Sascha was holding on, but just barely.

Grimly, she realized that she had perhaps overestimated the current ability of her friend. Usually the very least you could count on from Sascha was a solid, tenacious, if not always technically adept defence. Today he displayed none of that ability, despite his preference for the most defensive form of lightsaber combat, Soresu.

Nara's arrival evened up the odds for a brief second before Miriam also followed her into the developing fracas. Simply put, in a fray that was as complicated as this one, there was no time for thinking, you could only really let the years of training take over. Sascha and Nara put themselves in the middle storm of blades and each moved to defend the other, attacking where they spotted openings and moved where they saw space. If the Initiates had been a little more coordinated, would have focused their efforts on one of them, but instead they attacked haphazardly, always allowing the Padawans to protect themselves from being overwhelmed, despite their numerical disadvantage.

Even though she and Sascha were currently working with an 'advantage,' they were not making much headway against the Initiates. But something had to give. Finally, Miriam stepped back from the impromptu circle of blades and she and Sascha instinctively went on the attack, separating the two Initiates so they could each fight an Initiate other one-on-one for a brief moment. Nara tangled with the Trusk, Quane, who while he was not fast, she was finding that he was surprisingly strong. Deciding that she didn't want to combat strength with strength, she instead decided to use her quickness, kicking out at her opponent's knee. Gamely, the Trunsk absorbed the blow with a grunt and continued to use his strength to keep her at bay.

Behind her, the Devaronian had stepped back to prepare to send a Force push towards one of the Padawans, and she chose her target well. The Devaronian's Force push surprised Sascha, and instead of backpedalling away from his opponent like he had been, he was shoved _towards_ Kerk, and the two collided awkwardly. In the collision, she saw Sascha take an inadvertent elbow to the head from the taller human, and the Initiate's blue blade spark against Sascha's chest, leaving behind a painful burn. Sascha dropped like a stone, and Nara wasn't sure if he was going to be getting up any time soon.

She had no time to think about what that would mean, she could only control what was going on in front of her, so she quickly took advantage of Kerk still being entangled with her friend and slashed her blue blade across his ankle, eliminating him for fourty-five seconds. Kerk shot the Devaronian a baleful look, "Clumsy oaf!" spat Kerk, clearly unhappy at the Devaronian's intervention.

Nara re-calibrated herself, she still had two opponents facing her, Lassiter would be allowed to re-enter soon, much before Sascha would get to re-enter. She knew she'd have to fend off a two-on-one and then a brief three-on-one. As much faith as she had in herself and even knowing that the Initiates were not the greatest of combatants, she wasn't quite sure she could overcome those odds.

As the Initiates regrouped, she spared a quick glance towards Sascha, expecting to see him in a heap, but instead he had pulled himself to a sitting position, looking more determined than he had at any point during the entire exercise. She felt him send her reassurance through the Force, supplying her with the confidence to overcome this challenge. "Go get them," said Sascha.

Grinning like the predator she was, she once again entered the fray. Quickly stepping forward, she entangled her blades with Miriam before breaking the bind, and stepping back to land another kick on Quane. She felt the Force move freely within her, guiding her every action; unconsciously she slipped into her preferred form of lightsaber combat, form four, Ataru.

Only true masters of form four were supposed to use it to fight more than one opponent, it was a form of combat that relied on chaotic attacking, and scant, if any, defensive manoeuvres. This was something that was obviously dangerous when confronting numerous enemies. In the archives, she had once watched a Holocron with a video of Master Yoda using Ataru to hold off three Jedi Masters at once, it had been the most singularly impressive thing she had ever seen. Not that she could ever hope to match his level of power in the Force, she nonetheless used it as inspiration.

Nara became a whirling blade, propelling herself in a blur of leaps and lunges. She cartwheeled towards Miriam, landing a glancing kick before spinning toward Quane and forcing him into an untidy parry. Using that momentum from the parry she boosted herself into the air and twirled back towards Miriam, surprising the Devaronian and almost catching her across the waist with an unorthodox thrust.

The two Initiates stepped back, taken aback by her aggressiveness. Neither had been taught any advanced lightsaber techniques yet, just form one, Shii-cho the form that all Initiates learned. While the two Initiates glanced at each other, Nara darted between them, continuing to attack relentlessly. She felt that her pressure was beginning to dishearten the Initiates. If she could just keep the pressure on them, she might be able to win this thing all on her own...

But, she knew that she could not keep this up forever, and she felt little spikes of fatigue slow her down as she continued her acrobatic assault. So instead of gambling that she might have been able to defeat both Mariam and Quane in the next few seconds, she abandoned her offensive posture and decided that she would back off and play defensively.

And just in time too, she felt the confidence of the Initiates lift just as she thought that she might have an opening to defeat Quane, so instead of following through on her attack, she landed a weak kick to his arm, causing the Trusk to drop his lightsaber. Knowing that the Elomin, Lassiter was coming from behind her, she gathered the Force around her confidently and lept high into the air and away from the fray, giving her time and space to prepare herself for enduring a brief three-versus-one.

The Initiates gathered themselves together and began to advance on her and she felt he confidence start to evaporate. Three versus one was not good odds, and she was no Master Yoda...

 _Hang on Nara, I'll be there to help you soon_.

Hearing Sascha's voice so clearly in her head almost stunned her into missing an easy parry. That sort of easy communication only came with Jedi that had strong connections between each other. She didn't think she had one with Sascha…but maybe she did? Maybe it was a fluke? Or maybe she was hallucinating. There wasn't time to figure any of that out right now though.

Despite the mental plea from her friend, she was being pushed to the brink. The three Initiates were at last coordinating between themselves, and they were varying their attacks well. It was only through dropping deeply into the Force that she was able to keep their blades away from her. The Force was still humming around her with power, but her body was beginning to protest and resist her. She was basically using all of her power in the Force up just to survive, and she suspected that soon she'd have nothing left.

Three blades twirled around her, threatening her with their ultraviolet light, she abandoned her form four acrobatics and tried to adopt Sascha's form three style, but she had not practiced it very much and it showed in her form. She kept backing up and backing up, her defences becoming more and more compromised by the second, she knew that one moment soon she'd have lost.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Miriam step back from the fray and preparation for unleashing another Force push. At that moment she considered surrendering, she had no way to interrupt Miriam and no ability to counter her. The Force push, if delivered with any power would send her into the nearby wall and that would either end things right there or make her easy prey for Lassiter and Quane. But before she could compose the words to vocalize her surrender, she felt reassurance come from Sascha. Putting faith in her friend over common sense, she did not surrender and prepared herself to be flung into the wall.

Suddenly, Miriam's Force push was disrupted by one coming from Sascha. Mariam was sent spinning and Sascha was quickly on hand to follow up, dispatching the fallen Devaronian with a quick slice across the wrist, which caused Miriam to yell loudly in pain. Quane and Lassiter shared a quick look and decided to retreat and wait for Kerk to re-join the fight.

Sascha ambled over to her and put a hand on her shoulder, "You okay, Nara?"

"Just a little winded," she said, putting her hands on her knees for a quick moment. That thirty seconds when Sascha had been out had drained her power significantly.

"Let's finish this, little Togruta."

Too tired to object to the use of the nickname that she so hated, she merely nodded and said, "I'm with you, though I'm not at my best."

"No, I screwed up earlier, I'll make up for it." He looked down, then up at her again, and twirled his index finger in a short circular motion, "Dance with me, Padawan Nalto."

Despite her fatigue, Nara laughed, _this_ was the Sascha Whitestar that she had befriended. This was the lighthearted but earnest boy that she had come to respect. Where he had been for the last month was a question she would ask him later. "Let's go dancing, Padawan Whitestar."

Right now, it was a two on three, with Miriam being the only Initiate currently on the sidelines, but for the first time Nara felt like she and Sascha had the advantage. Together, she and Sascha didn't merely fight. They danced.

They attacked together, advancing on the thre Initiates in an all-out flurry. Her connection with Sascha in this last part of the sparring session felt so strong, that she simply knew where to attack, where to place her blade, and how to move around the Initiates. The two Padawans moved fluidly as one, taking advantage of any opening that was available to them. One by one, the Initiates fell to them, nursing a variety of textbook marks of contact, a mark of _cho mai_ caught Quane on the left wrist, Nara surprised Lassiter with a mark of _cho sun_ on his right arm. The last Initiate was the arrogant human, Kerk, and both Padwans overwhelmed him, each landing a burn, Nara's blue blade to his wrist, and Sascha's to his knee, causing Kerk to grunt in surprise and pain.

As the final strike landed, Master Drallig called a halt to the proceedings. Nara felt a wave of exhaustion come over her, she had pushed herself very hard in the drill and it was now catching up with her. She leaned against Sascha, who didn't seem to be in much better shape himself, as he also leaned on her for support. With the two leaning into each other, something had to give, and both Padawans simply slipped to the ground sitting back to back, too exhausted to even offer each other congratulations for a job well done.

At least she had a good view of things as the four Initiates trudged over to the Jedi Master looking dejected. They had been so confident earlier, and why not? They had been given a four on two advantage, but had been simply outclassed by the older Jedi. Master Drallig's eyes raked over the Initiates, and none of them tried to hold his gaze. "I think you all know that you should have done better in this drill," he said in his calm but stern tone of voice.

"Yes, Master," responded the Initiates miserably.

Master Drallig lectured the Initiates, finding them to be a more receptive audience now that they had been defeated. "Jedi work together, in studying, in diplomacy and in combat. The Jedi Order is a family and all are equal within its ranks, some may have different strengths than others but you should not think yourself superior to any of your peers. Understood?"

"Yes, Master" the Initiates parroted again.

"I want you to review this session, and tomorrow I want you to give me a list of five personal mistakes you made along with five things your opponents did well." Cin let a small amount of frustration show, "Dismissed."

The four chastised Initiates scurried out of the room quickly, obviously eager to be away from the site of their failure. Master Drallig turned his attention to the seated Padawans, "Are you both okay?"

Nara's energy was returning to her quickly enough, but she still continued to lean against Sascha, "I'm okay," she said.

"I'm okay too, though that collision with Kerk really hurt, that kid's head must be made of durasteel," said Sascha, who was rubbing his head gently.

"He fights like he has a head full of durasteel too," Cin muttered. "Such talent, but such arrogance as well. I always find this drill is helpful in showing young Jedi that they are not as good as they think they are, though this group was perhaps more arrogant than most." The Jedi Master clasped his hands behind his back, "Padawan Nalto, how does it feel to be on the other side of the drill?"

She grinned, "It feels much better to be on the winning side, Master Drallig."

"You've learned a lot since those days," the Jedi Master observed.

Nara felt herself nodding, "I have, and I know there is much more that I have to learn."

"A Jedi must always be learning," agreed Cin. "Maybe I could learn from your example, Padawans. You two displayed good teamwork together, I had no idea that you two had such a bond."

"Neither did we, Master Drallig," replied Sascha.

The tall Jedi Master smiled, "I'll leave you to your recovery, thank you for your spirited participation today," Cin bowed slightly and left the two Padawans alone, who were still leaning on each other for support.

"I'd get up, but I'm feeling kind of comfortable here," she jested lightly. Truth be told she _was_ comfortable leaning against Sascha's back, she even let her posterior lekku flap onto his shoulder. On Shili that would have been seen as being quite forward, but she was pretty sure Sascha didn't understand Togruta social customs. And if he did…well there wasn't anything wrong with a little harmless flirting. Maybe that was even a way to get Sascha out of his shell….

"I've got to get going," said Sascha. He got back to his feet, "Thanks for the invite, Nara, but I need to rest now…I haven't pushed myself that hard in weeks."

Ignoring the ache in her legs, she rose to follow him, "Sascha, I don't know what has been up with you, but do you mind telling me why you are so out of shape? And why you've been treating everyone like a total jerk until today?"

"Not now Nara," he said, moving towards the door.

"I just want to talk!"

"Buzz off Nara, I said not now."

"Tomorrow then?" she asked hopefully. Sascha didn't reply, he just walked out of the room leaving her alone.

What in the Force had gotten into her friend?

Whatever it was, she was going to find out.

And she was certainly not going to wait until tommorow.


	9. Chapter 9: A Tenacious Togruta

**Lord Darth Yoda** \- Yeah, Nara's still a little full over herself, but she's probably dialed down her arrogance from a 9/10 to a 6/10. Which is pretty good. Sascha did go back to being antisocial, but Nara's not going to give up that easily...

 **thejoker122-** Nara's definately stubborn and impulsive and all those good things. We'll get another taste of that in this chapter.

A/N - I've got nothing.

Anyways, please enjoy the next chapter!

* * *

 **Chapter 9: A Tenacious Togruta, A Ferocious Friend**

After the sparring session, Sascha made his way back to his room, and showered. For such a quick sparring session, he had managed to sweat up quite a storm. "Cause you are out of shape," he said out loud, shaking the water out of his short brown hair.

Once he was dried off, he laid on top of his bedroll, folding his hands peacefully on top of his stomach. He had just managed to get comfortable, when his datapad beeped, indicating an incoming message. He thought about using the Force to summon the datapad to his hand, but discarded that idea as being incomprehensibly lazy. Instead he sat up and fished around, looking for his datapad. When he found it buried under an old robe, he looked up to see that the message was from Nara, issuing a vague ultimatum about forcing him to talk to her.

He sighed an put down his datapad. While he was glad that Nara had seen fit to include him in that sparring session, he wanted a little bit of space from her. Nara was just so...enthusiastic, and he wasn't really in the mood for dealing with her. Maybe tomorrow he'd get breakfast with her or something. Right now, he had his own problems and he wanted to continue to deal with them. That was the only thing on his mind – getting himself back in the right frame of mind. He was getting there, but he wanted to _get_ there.

He lay back down on his bedroll and started preparations for meditation. He started slowing down his breathing and focusing his mind towards finding his personal area of peace. But peace was not to be his today, as his reverie was interrupted by a loud, insistent, knock on his door. He knew that it could only be one person, "Go away Nara."

"I'm not going anywhere until you open this door and talk with me," replied the Togruta through the door.

Sascha held his head in his hands, all he wanted was to be left alone, but his slightly obnoxious friend wouldn't do so. "I'm not opening the door, so are you just going to camp outside my door all day?"

"You know, that _does_ sound like a good idea! Thanks, Sascha!"

Sascha rolled his eyes, got up and went to the door, intending on giving Nara a talking to that she'd remember for the rest of her life. Except when he opened the door, the Togruta simply barged right past him and into his room.

"Nara, get out of my room," he said, exasperated.

"Yes, I can see you're hard at work," she replied sarcastically. "So I'm here now, so you start talking about what is bothering you, I'm not leaving until I get an answer." To emphasize her words, she sat in the middle of his room and stared up at him expectantly.

Sascha could feel his patience fraying, "Nara, get out! What happened to me is none of your _kriffing_ business." He held an arm out indicating the door, and where he wanted her to go.

Nara shrugged, "I guess you've chosen the hard way then."

Before he could ask what she meant, the Togruta leapt up from her seated position, and tackled him to the ground. Surprised at being assaulted in the middle of his room, he offered little resistance as Nara sat lightly on his stomach and pinned his hands beside his head as he lay flat on the ground. "Nara, what are you doing! Get the _kriff_ off of me!"

The Togruta cocked her head to one side, considering the statement, "I'm doing what needs to be done. Believe me, I'm not enjoying this any more than you are. I'm not leaving here until you tell me why you've stopped training and become a recluse."

Sascha did not intend to have a conversation with Nara while being pinned to the ground in the middle of his room. In fact, he did not intend to have a conversation with her at all. He swung his hips and surprised Nara by throwing her off of him. The Togruta reacted quickly, keeping a hold of Sascha's left wrist and using that leverage to plant him back on his back.

"I don't want to hurt you, but you _will_ talk to me," she said.

"Make me," he responded defiantly.

The two started wrestling. Sascha searched for a limb of hers that he could utilize to get the upper hand, but Nara was too fast for him and kept a hold of his wrist, eventually securing enough control of his body to twist his wrist in a way it wasn't supposed to bend. As a shot of pain pulsed down his arm, he found himself whimpering pitifully, and called "Solah!" the traditional call of surrender during a sparring match. Nara hadn't done any real damage to him, but with his wrist being twisted, he was under her control, and he felt his will to resist her fading. He remembered why it was occasionally annoying to have friends that were superior fighters.

"You done fighting?" asked Nara, who kept a firm hold of his wrist. At least now she wasn't twisting it, so he wasn't in any pain, but he was in no position to resist either.

He kept his body calm, "Yes, Nara."

"You are going to talk to me, right?"

"If you want to talk, we'll talk," he said agreeably. He was running out of willpower and ways to resist the persistent Togruta, and was frankly tired of freezing out his friend as well. Well, he decided, if she really wanted to know what had happened...

"Okay," said Nara, releasing the hold on his wrist.

Sascha sat up rubbed his wrist gently. Nara hadn't done any damage to it, but there were some small tendrils of pain still shooting down his wrist. "Nice wrist lock."

"Thanks," smiled Nara, "I'll teach it to you if you want?"

"I'll pass, thanks. But what was up with you pinning me to the ground?"

Nara looked coy, "What, didn't you like it?"

"Oh yeah, I'm a huge fan of being accosted in the middle of my room."

"Well you probably should have done a better job resisting then," Nara joked lightly. "You outweigh me, and I'm pretty sure that you are physically stronger than me - you should have been able to get me off of you. But you barely tried."

That was true, Nara was roughly his size, but she was thinner than he was. While Nara was quicker, he was undoubtedly stronger. So why hadn't he put up a real fight against Nara? Maybe he had been too shocked to try hard? "I guess that's true," he admitted.

"I know why you didn't push me away – you didn't want to." Nara blushed deeply, the dark red parts of her lekku and montrals brightening slightly, "I didn't mean it, uh, like that, I meant..."

While it was amusing to see Nara so obviously embarrassed, he decided to spare her, "It's okay Nara, you are right. I didn't want to push you away anymore. Literally and figuratively."

Nara was still seemingly upset at herself, "I shouldn't have done it, I don't know what I was thinking…" Nara tapped her head lightly, "Stupid brain short-circuited again, I think."

Sascha wasn't quite sure if Nara was acting or legitimately embarrassed. "It's okay, Nara. It's not like I've never been in close quarters with you before. Remember like when we practiced grappling for like an hour straight?"

"Yeah, I made you submit like fifteen times," smiled Nara.

Sascha remembered it being less than fifteen, but she had certainly won that session pretty handily, "And I made you tap out like ten times," he retorted (more like seven). "But that's not my point, my point is it wasn't weird being in close contact with you until you just made it weird."

Nara shrank slightly, "Can I make it unweird? I just wanted to show that I was serious in getting you to talk. This past month it's felt like I've needed to take drastic actions just to get your attention. I think I just went a tad too drastic."

"Just a tad," he said sarcastically.

Nara held her hands out, "Okay, okay, enough of embarrassing the idiot Togruta. I guess I've learned my lesson for the day - 'do not wrestle Padawan Whitestar,'" she replied drolly. "But I'd like to hear what happened to you."

Sascha started with his story, detailing what had happened since he left the Temple on the mission to Bothawui. He found that it was actually cathartic to tell one of his peers what had happened instead of a Jedi Knight or Master.

That opinion was clearly not shared by his Togruta friend. By the end of his tale, the deep red markings on her montrals and lekku were as bright in embarrassment as he'd ever seen them. "Sascha…I'm so sorry…if I had known what had happened between you and Tyra, I never would have pinned you like that. Force, I'm such an idiot. You must hate me right now. I just thought we were flirting harmlessly…it was supposed to be a way of getting your mind off what had happened. I'm so sorry, I'll go now." The Togruta rose and headed for the door looking dejected.

Sascha reached out and grabbed her arm, making sure that she wasn't going to leave. He gave her a sympathetic look, "It's okay Nara…you couldn't have known what had happened. Don't worry about it. If being tackled by a Togruta is the worst thing that happens to me today, it'll have been a pretty good day. And it feels good to talk about this. I've been bottling everything up inside, I just needed someone to talk to. I pushed all my friends away. All of them except for you, you never gave up on me, and you were even willing to tackle me in my own room to get me to talk…so let's talk."

Despite the fact that he was holding onto her arm, it looked like Nara might still decide to run, if she did, he decided that she'd have to physically drag him along with her. "Are you sure?" she asked. "I feel like a total idiot right now."

"Nara. Sit. Let's talk."

He released the light grip he had on Nara's arm and she compliantly sat across from him, "I'm not exactly sure where to start, but to me seems like you are healed. You look fine – a bit fat maybe- but fine. You fought fine against those Initiates, sure you were rusty, but there was nothing _wrong_ with you."

"There's still plenty wrong with me Nara. Everyone says that I'm healed, but I don't always feel that way. I'm still afraid."

"Afraid of what?" she asked, obviously confused.

"A bunch of things," he admitted. "I'm afraid of these visions of Tyra that I keep getting when I use the Force. I'm afraid of having them show up at the worst possible times and having it cost someone's life." He sighed, "And I'm afraid of getting too close with someone again, and becoming attached to them. I gave up one friend, my best friend, I'm not sure I can bear to lose another one. I'm just not sure I have it in me to be a Jedi anymore. I think I'd like to be, but I'm not sure I can be."

Sascha was surprised when Nara burst out into a peal of laughter. "Did I say something funny Nara?"

Nara laughed again, "Yeah, you should take your comedy routine to the main dining hall. You know who gets scared a lot, and about all those things you just mentioned? I do. Trigg does. Doro does. We all do. But we don't _let_ those fears influence us," she said, poking Sascha in the chest with a purple finger. "And if _you_ aren't sure if you can be a Jedi, we're all hopeless then."

"You are telling me that everyone is scared?"

"Yeah, it's called being alive and having emotions. Being a Jedi doesn't rip those out of your chest. But we learned to control them. Remember?"

"I must have forgotten the lessons," he said bitterly.

Nara paused for a moment, and then chose a different tactic, "Do you know what my biggest fear is?"

Sascha shook his head and Nara continued, "My biggest fear is that when I die, no one will remember me, no one will mourn me. My nightmare is that my life will disappear without a trace once I'm gone."

"Nara, that's ridiculous, I'm your friend, Doro and Trigg are your friends, and Master Tiplee will certainly mourn you if happen to die."

Nara smiled weakly, "I know that my fear is not rational. But because I know what I fear, I know how to combat it. I combat it by doing things like this, by making an impression on people's lives. Why don't we do the same with you. What's your biggest fear Sascha?"

He was silent for a long moment, as he considered the question.

"Come on, I told you mine," said Nara, putting a childish whine into her voice.

"Hold on, I'm trying to rank them all," he said with a half-smile. "I think that my biggest fear is that…I can't be a good Jedi if Tyra isn't around to help me."

The Togruta looked stunned for a brief moment before recovering admirably, "You know that's ridiculous right?"

"Why? Tyra and I used to do everything together, we both got to where we are today because we could always rely on each other…but now…that's gone, for both of us. She killed it."

"First," said Nara, "You have to let go of this idea that _she_ did this to you. You are both equally guilty."

"But…"

"No Buts!" said Nara, who had gotten up on her haunches and was looking like she might tackle him again. "You loved _each other_. That's a two way street. Tyra ended things, sure, but they were going to end, Sascha."

"But she didn't have to abandon me!"

"Abandon you?!" exclaimed Nara. "She didn't abandon you! She risked her _life_ for you, you laser-brained idiot!"

"But she left me, and she didn't even talk to me!" he exclaimed.

"And what was that you would want her to say that isn't completely bleeding obvious?" replied Nara evenly. "Have you looked at things from her perspective yet? Maybe she knew that a clean break, while painful, would be the best way to end things. This way there could be no confusion. No second guessing. And you have to realize that what she did was as painful for her as it was for you."

"I…hadn't thought of that," he admitted.

"Which is something I thought that Sascha Whitestar would never do. You were so obsessed with your feelings you forgot to consider how Tyra was feeling. Tell me, does that sound like the selfless Sascha Whitestar that existed a few months ago?"

"It doesn't." How had he not thought about how Tyra felt? He was always the person thinking about other people! Why had he become so selfish?

Nara sat back down, seemingly satisfied that she had made her point, "I understand that you were hurt," she said softly, "But don't become bitter because something bad happened to you. Don't shut out your friends – we aren't tragedies waiting to happen."

Something from Yoda's conversation with him finally clicked into place, "I won't shut out my friends anymore," he said, and he meant it. "But I'm still afraid of losing my friends."

"Don't," said Nara. "Our lives are not yours to control. You have to let go, and accept it."

Sascha found himself nodding. His friend's lives weren't his to control – they never had been. Being worried about Doro or Trigg or Tyra while they were on a mission was both totally useless, and completely counterproductive. "I'll work on letting go."

Nara smiled and nodded, "Good. Now the second thing. You fear that you can't be a good Jedi if Tyra's not here to help you."

He scratched the back of his neck nervously, "Yeah."

"So you are saying that Tyra was like a crutch for you."

"That's a crude metaphor, but sure."

Nara reached out and gently grabbed his hand, "Sascha, that's a crutch neither of you have needed for years."

Sascha fought his natural reaction to pull away from her grasp, "I don't think you know either of us well enough to say that, Nara."

"Sure I do," Nara said perkily, "When we fought in the apprentice tournament, was it just you I was fighting, or was Tyra there too?"

"Just me, but you beat me, as I recall."

"Because I'm a better fighter and stronger in the Force, yes, I won that day, but it was _your_ tenacity and toughness that pushed me to my absolute limit, not hers. And in the end we both won, because we both ended up as Padawans."

"I suppose that's true," he admitted.

"And Tyra, she has survived almost three years as a Padawan, is it because you've held her hand all this time?"

"Of course not!"

"So was she a crutch for you or not?"

Sascha shook his head, trying to clear his mind and attempting to sort through the ideas presented to him. Still holding his hand in hers, Nara continued, "She was a friend to you Sascha, nothing more. A good friend, a source of strength, and yes, you loved her, but you are confusing your relationship for something that it wasn't. You are a Jedi Sascha Whitestar, always were, always will be."

Realization seemed to dawn on Sascha Whitestar all at once. "I've been a fool," he whispered.

He tried to pull away from Nara, but the Togruta stubbornly held on to his hand. "Sometimes, it's easier for a person who is removed from the situation to come in and provide wisdom. I could see it, because I've only known you for a few months. And it works in other ways too, you were the person that saw the Jedi I could become instead of the person I was, because we had barely even spoke before the Tournament…I don't know if anyone else did."

"I'm sure other Jedi saw you had potential, but also that you were a massive screw-up," he joked, before realizing that what he said could refer just as easily to himself, which caused him to laugh ruefully.

Nara smiled, "You see my point? Remember the Jedi Code, Sascha, there is no ignorance, there is knowledge. Usually, I think that is supposed to mean that you should study and know things about the galaxy, but it also means you have to know yourself."

Sascha grinned weakly, "Since when are you a scholar, Nara?"

"Oh, I'm not much of one, I just know how to twist the Jedi Code to fit my arguments," she said with a lopsided smile.

"A handy talent."

"It's helpful from time to time," she agreed.

He hesitated, "Can I tell you another fear I have?"

Nara nodded solemnly, "Of course. I'm your friend, Sascha."

"I'm afraid to use the Force."

"You used it yesterday without any problems," Nara said, rolling her eyes.

"I mean…yeah, but what happens when it isn't as easy as yesterday, what happens if I freak out like I have been?"

"What happens if a ship crashes into the Temple and kills us all? Stop living in the world of hypotheticals. The Sascha that I knew before you were 'broken' would always see the good in something rather than focusing on the bad. Don't think, feel. You haven't forgotten how to use the Force, it seems like you just lost yourself."

He stroked his chin, absorbing that last statement, "Even if that's true Nara, I'm not sure I want it back. I've taken lives by my own hand, I've had people die because of me…I'm not sure I want that responsibility back."

"Is that why you don't carry your lightsaber anymore?"

"Yeah, I don't like having that sort of responsibility."

"Holonewsflash Sascha, there are millions and billions of beings that carry the responsibility of having to make life or death decisions every day. You aren't special in that way."

"What?"

Nara seemed increadulous, "You think that you are the only one that makes decisions that deal with life and death? Do you know how many police officers there are in the Republic? How many surgeons there are? Hell, there are _droids_ that make life-and-death decisions. Are you saying that you are worse equipped to make decisions than a droid that was programmed by someone?"

"I...don't know." What Nara was somehow both confusing to him while making complete and total sense. It was like he was experiencing cognitive dissonance within himself...which also didn't make any sense.

Nara adjusted herself, "Let me put it this way – I just told you my biggest fear, Sascha. Something that outside of my Master, no one else knows. You know why I did that?" Nara poked him in the chest, "Because I _trust_ you. Just like Trigg does. Just like Doro does. Just like Tyra does. You know why all these people trust you? Because you are worthy of trust."

"I..."

Nara shrugged casually, "Or, you could take the alternative, you can walk away from the Jedi Order, but you've made the galaxy a darker place if you do," Nara said offhandedly.

Sascha finally found his feet in the conversation again, "I'm just one person, Nara."

Nara poked a purple finger into his chest with force, and he half expected her to tackle him to the ground again, "One _Jedi._ You talk about how many people died because of you, well how many people have you saved? How many more people will you save in your career as a Jedi? How in the _hell_ can you be so selfish, Sascha! You're one of the few people in a galaxy of trillions and trillions that can use the Force, and just because you're a _little_ scared, you're going to run away from all the years of training that have been given to you? Do you think this was what Tyra would have wanted?"

"I...don't want to run from my problems anymore."

Maybe it was this talk with Nara, maybe it was the conversation with Master Yoda finally falling into place, but he was finally starting to find himself again. The conversation with Master Yoda had been about finding himself, this conversation with Nara seemed to be about who he wanted to be. And he _did_ want to be a Jedi. And while he wasn't thrilled by the idea of being able to take another being's life – Nara was right, this wasn't something that was unique to him, or the Jedi.

But it was that last remark about Tyra that had really hit home.

While he still disagreed with what Tyra had done, leaving him on Bothawui without having a conversation, he badly doubted that Tyra had done it completely selfishly. Tyra was still Tyra. She was still his best friend, and she had always had his best interests at heart. And how could he sit here, call Tyra his best friend and biggest influence and push away his friends? How could he honor Tyra and even think about leaving the Jedi Order? How could he sit here, totally useless to the galaxy, when Tyra was out there doing good?

But he also didn't want to live his life in relation to Tyra. He wanted to find his own path, irrespective of what Tyra was doing. Because she couldn't live his life for him. And he wanted to live for himself, be the Jedi that he had been born to be.

Nara waved her hand in front of his eyes, "Sascha, you in there still? Or has my great wisdom rendered you comatose?"

Sascha playfully swatted her hand away, "I was doing what most Jedi like to call 'thinking' – you might try it one day," he joked.

Nara smiled, "Normally I'd take offence to that. But I'm so happy to see you making a joke that I'm going to ignore it."

"Nara Nalto taking the moral high ground? This _is_ a first"

The Togruta wagged a finger at him, "You get those two jokes for free. The next one gets you a punch on the shoulder."

"And the one after that?" he teased

"Stomach."

"And the one after that?"

Nara smiled predatorily, "You don't want to know."

Feeling slightly absurd at being even vaguely intimidated by the playful threat from Nara, he grinned sheepishly, "I guess I don't want to find out."

"No, you don't."

He barked a laugh, "Thanks for this Nara. I needed this talk. I needed a friend to say what you just said to me."

Nara bowed her head slightly, "No problem, my friend. I just want the old Sascha back. This new Sascha was not a very good friend."

"No he wasn't, was he?"

"You're going to need to apologize to your Master when she gets back," Nara warned.

"I will," he said. "I haven't been a very good apprentice to her for the past month."

"Nope," said Nara lazily, "But as long as you're committed to being the person you were, you'll be fine."

"Thanks, Nara." He hesitated for a moment, "Do you want to meditate with me?"

The Togruta cocked her head to one side, "Well, as you know, I hate meditating. But for a friend, I'll do it."

Nara put words to action immediately, dropping assuredly into a light trance. Sascha hesitated briefly before joining her. He is surprised by how different Nara seems in meditation than she does normally. While he usually thinks of her as a 'fierce little Togruta,' and very similar to Tyra in terms of temperament, right now she lacks Tyra's trademark intensity and while there is an undercurrent of restlessness to her, he gets the sense that there are many more complex emotions lying underneath.

The two Jedi don't do anything special in their meditation, they just drifted along the currets of the the Force together. It was peaceful and calm and this was the sort of meditation that Sascha had always loved. The fact that he could do it again, and even do it with a friend was heartening. It made him feel like his old self.

The meditation came to a sort of natural end, and he opened his eyes to realize that many hours had passed and it was dark outside. Nara swatted him on the shoulder as she rose, "Yup, just as boring as I remember."

He smiled fondly at his friend, "Thanks, Nara…I owe you."

Nara smiled back, "You owe me nothing."

"Do you want to maybe spar tomorrow? I could use the practice."

The Togruta bounced lightly on her feet and started shadowboxing, "Any chance I get to knock you around the sparring arena like a discount duelling droid is a chance I'm going to take. Maybe one day you'll even beat me in a sparring session."

"Nara, no one 'wins' in sparring sessions, they are for practice."

"Spoken like a true loser," Nara laughed.

Sascha tried not to laugh, but failed. "Okay Nara, see you tomorrow."

Nara bowed politely and exited his room, a little bounce in her step, obviously pretty happy with herself.

None of that had particularly gone as he had expected. But unexpected had been good recently. He'd fallen into a rut, and he hadn't been particularly sure how to get out of that rut. The talk with Master Yoda had dragged him nearly out of it, and this last talk with Nara had been the last kick in the rear that he had needed to get him back to somewhat normal.

Sascha lay back against the cold stone floor of his room. He felt the presence of his lightsaber in his room, the crystal in the hilt was attuned to him, and though he wasn't quite sure where the cylinder actually was, he visualized it in his hand. Sure enough, his lightsaber emerged from under a pile of clothes and flew into his palm. He grinned, feeling his mind clear of distractions for the first time in a long while and the growing seeds of confidence within himself. He placed his most treasured possession back on his belt, feeling very much like a Jedi again.


	10. Chapter 10: Role Reversal

**Lord Darth Yoda** \- She's certainly not Tyra - Tyra was always a bit more mature and seasoned then Sascha (which makes sense as she's been a Padawan for a while now). Nara and Sascha are just sort of coming into their own, which makes them more natural partners...it also means that I don't have to write a love story...which is nice. Nara's certainly Ahsoka-esque in the snark department - which makes her fun to write, but we'll also delve into her complexities as well - she gets a really fun backstory in this book - the chapters where they are explored are probably my favourite of anything I've done.

 **thejoker122-** re: crystals - It's certainly one of those 'mystical things' - there is a good episode of Clone Wars about it in season 5 that deals with that. There's also a throwaway line about a technique that allows a Jedi to attune themselves to a crystal...which is never elaborated upon, so I dunno. Also yay, glad to hear that your story is coming along - though winter seems an awful long way away - but if you want someone to edit, just let me know.

 **SpeechbubbleMe** \- I actually think I made Sascha's depression go on for a bit too long, but I really didn't want to make it seem inconsequential either. Tough one to balance, but I think I strayed on sticking with this storyline for a bit too long. I enjoy writing Nara, she's kind of a spunky goof at this point, but like an onion (or an ogre) she has layers (please tell me you get this reference, otherwise it's going to look super weird). And speaking of wanting more - I demand more chapters from your fic! MOAR!

A/N - Publishing early because I'm going to a baseball game, so ya'll get an early dose tonight

Anyways, please enjoy the next chapter!

* * *

 **Chapter 10: Role Reversal**

"By the Force, I'm terrible, aren't I?"

Nara Nalto, clad in her beige robe, smirked at him, "Well, lets not go that far…but this hasn't exactly been your finest moment."

Sascha and Nara were sparring the day after their conversation. And suffice to say the session wasn't exactly going well for him. He was sweating so much it felt like he was sparring in the middle of the Tatooine desert. Nara, on the other hand, had a light sheen of sweat on her skin, and was bouncing lightly on her feet, looking as if this sparring session was the most fun that she'd had all week.

In fairness, she _was_ winning.

Perhaps more fairly, Sascha was just _losing_.

His timing was off, his footwork was sloppy, and he seemed to be moving in glacially slow-motion. He was pretty sure that Nara was taking it easy on him, but the fact that he couldn't tell if that was actually the case was disconcerting. He'd never exactly been the greatest fighter, but he'd usually put in a good account of himself and make his opponent work to beat him. Today, Nara could have probably beat him with one arm tied behind her back. Which was...embarrassing.

Sascha decided that he'd had enough, and he took a knee, disengaging his lightsaber and bowing to Nara in a smooth motion, "I'm done, Nara. Solah."

Nara bounced up and down in an exaggerated gesture of celebration, "That's five wins in a row for me, Sascha. You gotta shape up soon, or I won't be able to spar with you anymore because I just _outclass_ you so badly."

Sascha smiled, "Maybe that's for the best, you're the only person that I regularly spar with that beats me up when I spar with them." Nara was physical when sparring and in this session she had battered the out of practice Padawan with a barrage of precise kicks. He had enough trouble dealing with the lightning fast Togruta's lightsaber, but when she added in her kicks, it was a difficult combination to defeat. Nara had certainly taken it slightly easy on him today in that regard, he could only remember taking a couple of kicks from the Togruta, but when they landed, they had stung. "Don't get ahead of yourself, little Togruta, I still have lots I can teach you. Just let me get back in shape first"

Nara slapped his back good-naturedly, "I know, I gotta rub in my victories though, otherwise you'll have no incentive to beat me."

"Please Nara, on the day I beat you I'm retiring from sparring with you. Though at this rate, I may never beat you."

Nara grinned, "I'm sure you'll get lucky…eventually." The Togruta sat down and withdrew a datapad that had recorded their sparring session, "Come on, let's analyze what we did wrong."

He groaned, "You sure that we can get through all of my mistakes in one day?"

"Only if we get started right now," replied Nara earnestly.

He hesitated and then leaned over Nara's shoulder so that he could see the datapad clearly, "Then lets get started."

* * *

The two Jedi spent a good hour analyzing their mistakes and correcting some of the flaws that they spotted in each others technique. They spent most of the time focusing on him, but Nara wasn't exactly perfect either. Her biggest problem was that she would let her aggressiveness get her into positions where a better opponent could take advantage of her being out of position. His problem was…well he didn't have an advantage over Nara in any specific area. He was somewhat stronger than her, but it was hard to use his physical strength to his advantage during a lightsaber duel. Nara's footwork used to be even worse than his, but now they were about even in that regard.

The pair headed back to the section of the Temple that housed the vast majority of the Jedi that were currently in residence. While the Jedi Order had more than 10,000 members, it only tended to house a fraction of that number at any given time. Still the Temple could house all of them, if they would go through the bother of fixing up the rooms that had been left untouched for hundreds of years. Somehow, Sascha doubted that particular problem was high up on the priority list.

Nara and Sascha didn't live far from each other, as Padawans their rooms were quite small, just room for their bedroll, a small computer terminal and minimal space for their possessions like their clothes and assorted other belongings. Sascha had never minded and he'd never heard Nara complain about it either. To be honest, it was easier to maintain the ascetic life of a Jedi when you didn't have room to put things.

Sascha glanced down at his datapad and read a message, "Looks like our Masters will be back at the Temple tomorrow." Aurine's message had been short and to the point, but he was glad to see that she was still keeping him informed. Next up would be the harder step, apologizing as profusely as possible and resuming his training with her.

"Good," replied Nara, heading to her door, which had the insignia for her home planet, Shili, inscribed onto it, "I'm tired of being a Padawan in the Temple without a Master. I just want to go on another mission as soon as possible." Nara turned and offered him a shallow bow, "Thanks for the sparring session, see you when our Masters return?"

"Wait. Nara, we should talk."

The Togruta looked confused, "I thought we already dealt with what was bothering you last night?"

Sascha shook his head, "I don't want to talk about my problems. I want to talk about yours."

Nara's eyes registered shock for a brief second, "I don't have any problems, thank you," she replied curtly.

Sascha sighed and waited until Nara opened her door, and then just barged right past her and into her room, much as she had yesterday. The only difference between their two rooms was the temperature, Shili was a warm planet and Togruta liked the heat, whereas Sascha, being born on Sluis Van was much more partial to cool temperatures. Being human was probably also part of it.

Nara was not amused by what he had just done, "Sascha, get out of my room before I toss you out. You know I can do it."

Sascha continued to sit in the middle of her room not moving a muscle, "Toss me if you want Nara, but I know you won't. You want to talk to me."

Nara marched towards him a threatening expression on her face, but Sascha stood, or rather sat his ground, looking up at her expectantly. Instead of picking him up and tossing him through the doorway, like she had threatened, the aggression in her posture dissipated all at once, "Okay, we'll talk, but…will you lay next to me? I like being physically close to people…it's a Togruta thing." Nara quietly lay down fairly close to him, kicking her boots off as she did so.

Sascha hesitated for a moment, then shucked his boots off as well. It was a bit...odd to be laying so close with Nara, but at the same time it didn't really seem particularly intimate either. It was just two people being physically close to each other, not signifying anything. "So, laying close to each other, that's a Togruta thing?"

Nara stared at the ceiling, "Yeah." She turned her head to him, "Do you know much about Togruta culture?"

"I know some things, but I'm not quite sure what you are referring to."

"I'll play the role of teacher then. Togruta are a communal people, in our ancestral past we had to work together to fend off the larger predators on Shili. Togruta are pack hunters, and we lived and worked closely with our pack mates." Nara sighed, "I would have been a terrible pack mate. I'm better at pushing people away than I am to getting close to them. But I want to change that – and part of that is I have to let people get close to me."

"I understand the sentiment, but I don't think that has anything to do with physical closeness."

"Maybe I just laying close to a boy then," Nara remarked sarcastically.

"Nara, you don't have to be so defensive, I'm your friend."

The Togruta cringed, "Sorry, old habit."

"It's okay," he said comfortingly. The two were silent for a long moment. "This is nice," he said, "Though I would like some sort of pillow or back support." The ground was made of stone, and while it was heated to a pleasing temperature it was still stone. Still, this was a nice, almost tender moment he was sharing with Nara.

"For me, I have trouble letting people in and getting to know me. I've been pushing people away for so long that I do it just by reflex now."

"Well I won't be pushed away," he said honestly.

"Thanks, my friend." Nara exhaled loudly, "How did you know I wanted to talk?"

"Seriously? We meditated together yesterday, and I could tell there was something off about you. I'm…good at making emotional connections with people, it's one of the few things I'm good at, so when I sat down last night and thought about what we did yesterday it became clear to me that you wanted a friendly face to talk to." He turned to face her, the Togruta was still staring at the ceiling, which Sascha noticed had a map of the galaxy engraved into it, "Nara, you should know I'm always there for you, why did you not talk to me?"

Nara squirmed briefly, "The…old me was selfish, I didn't want to harm your recovery by burdening you with my problems."

Sascha smiled faintly, "Thank you for thinking about me, but after that talk we had yesterday, I feel like I'm back to my old self. So spill it, what's bothering you?"

She sighed, "I feel like a fraud. I don't think I deserve to be a Padawan. I pushed myself so hard, ignored making friends to become what I thought was 'the best Padawan I could be,' and now that I am one …I don't know what I'm doing." The Togruta shook her head and for the first time Sascha could ever remember, she looked frail and unconfident.

"Nara, you won the apprentice tournament."

Nara cut him off, "I won because I'm strong in the Force and I'm good at combat, not because I'm a good Jedi. I was so close to washing out of the Jedi Order even with my talents, if I hadn't run into you and realized what an idiot I was being I…I don't know what I would have ended up becoming. I don't know if any Master would have wanted me as their apprentice."

"Nara, no one forced Master Tiplee to pick you. You were chosen by Master Tiplee because of your potential. None of us are the finished article when we are chosen, not me, not anyone." Sascha glanced away, "I actually had a similar conversation with Tyra when we were on Kuat together, I was on my first mission, Master Brynar had gotten hurt and I just felt so…lost, like all the training I got in the Temple was absolutely useless. Tyra said that the first few months of being a Padawan are the hardest of a Jedi's life. And having lived through mine, I totally agree."

The Togruta didn't seem to be convinced, "That's the thing though Sascha, I discarded everything in my quest to make sure I got picked to be a Padawan, no friends, no hobbies, just putting 100% effort into becoming what I thought would have been the perfect Padawan. I have more skills than you can shake a stick at; I've spent long hours searching up obscure Force abilities so I could learn them. And you know what? All of that was wasted time! I should have made friends, made connections, learned how to interact with people, because being a Jedi is not about learning how to lift rocks, it's about helping people! How can you help someone if you don't know how to talk to them?"

"Nara, you're not exactly socially awkward, and you have friends, you have me, Doro, Trigg and Tyra. You'll make more friends, you just have to give it time." Sascha laid a hand softly on her shoulder, "Whatever you did in the past is the past Nara, that's how I'm moving on from my past, I think you should join me…and I think we should start with getting you some new clothes."

Nara rolled over onto her side and stared at him in disbelief, "You must be joking. New clothes?"

"I'm not joking," he said seriously. "After I got my Padawan braid, after you braided it for me, I got new clothes befitting my new rank, but you never did, you kept your old Initiates robe with the sleeves cut short. It's a symbolic thing, but my new clothes indicated my new status. You have been stuck in the mindset that you are still an Initiate, because you don't think you deserve to be a Padawan, so you kept your old robes. You should get new ones…or wear some traditional Togruta clothing, I know you can't enjoy wearing heavy robes in this heat."

Nara sat up and stared at her beige robe for a long time. "How is it that you are so perceptive Sascha?"

"It's mostly just lucky guesses," he said modestly.

"I really feel like ripping this robe right off me, I can't believe that I didn't see something so obvious."

Sascha blushed, "If you are going to do something that crazy let me leave first, I don't want any wild rumours started about me."

The Togruta shoved him lightly, "Please, I know you're the most prudish Padawan in the Temple, you'd probably faint if I took off my outer tunic."

Sascha felt himself blushing a deeper shade of red, but had enough control to turn the conversation back to something more serious. "We can save the new outfit for later. But we were talking about your problems."

Nara's shoulders slumped, but she didn't seem as defeated or frail as she did earlier, "I hate to admit it, but I'm more than a little jealous of you."

"Jealous of me?"

Sascha started laughing uproariously, and Nara punched him hard in the shoulder, "Hey I didn't laugh at your problems."

Sascha corralled his outburst and returned his face to a neutral mien, "Sorry Nara."

The Togruta rolled her eyes at him, but spoke honestly, "I'm jealous of the connection you have with your Master. I've seen you two walking through the Temple, just laughing and smiling with each other. She's the perfect Master for you. But Master Tiplee and I can't seem to make that connection. I feel like I'm a piece of luggage that she just takes on her missions. I get to do the menial tasks while she does the main part of the mission, and then half the time I find out later that I didn't interpret her instructions correctly. And in this last mission she got, she didn't even take me!" Nara clenched her fists in obvious frustration, "I don't know, certainly I learn a lot from Master Tiplee, but I'm not even sure why she chose me to be her apprentice."

There was a lot to unpack in Nara's statement, thought Sascha. "Have you said anything to Master Tiplee?"

Nara snorted, "Yeah that sounds like a fun conversation, 'Master I don't think you appreciate me enough, and I'd like it if we were friendlier. Also, please tell me the top five reasons why you picked me to be your apprentice.'"

Sascha shrugged, "I don't see what is wrong with being so forward. Remember she usually works with her twin sister, and she gave up that partnership to take you as her apprentice. But she's used to working with someone that understands her intuitively, and I think if you said that her style of teaching isn't working for you, she'll be receptive to that."

Nara leaned back, "And you think that will work?"

He shrugged, "I don't know if it will work, but its better than just hoping it will magically fix itself. Remember just because she's a Jedi Knight, it doesn't mean she is omniscient. A Master and Padawan partnership is just that…a partnership – it can only work if both people buy into it and are honest with the other."

"I…never thought of it like that. I just sort of assumed that she knew how I was feeling."

"Remember, she's a Jedi Knight, not a mind reader."

Nara nodded slowly, "Fair point. But what if I have this conversation with her and it goes badly?"

Sascha cocked an eyebrow at her, "I believe that yesterday someone accused me of 'living in the world of hypotheticals.' I believe the same now applies to you, Nara."

Nara grinned slightly, "You know I hate when my words get used against me."

"Sorry, but it _is_ a good way to win an argument."

"I hate losing arguments too."

"Sorry, you'll have to get used to that one," he replied with a smirk.

The Togruta laughed softly, "Okay. I'll try not to be a sore loser. And I'll talk with Master Tiplee when she gets back."

He nodded, "I think that it will work out for the best, Nara."

Nara kept silent for a few moments, but Sascha could tell that she had more to say, so he simply laid silently beside her and waited. Eventually Nara broke her silence, "Can I say the other reason I'm jealous of you?"

"I can see how you'd be jealous of my startling good looks."

Nara tried to supress her laughter but she failed, while he grinned good-naturedly. While he didn't think of himself as ugly, he knew that he pretty much belonged to the definition of average. Which was fine by him anyway.

When Nara recovered, she said, "I'm actually jealous of what you've accomplished so far in your career. You've been on the Holonet. You saved a whole planet. I on the other hand have done less than a Dug on a hot day. I've been beside my Master during some trade disputes; I helped escort some criminals to Coruscant, I've helped out the Judicials on some investigations, but that's it. That is all I've accomplished," Nara said, folding her arms across her chest.

"You make it sound like I'm a conquering hero," he said. "You do realize that I ended up in Hospitals after both of my missions, right?"

Nara stuck her tongue out at him, "Yeah but you got to do things that were important. I haven't done anything of note. I don't think I'll ever be trusted with anything important," she pouted.

"My first mission started out as guarding a Senator and my second mission started with an investigation of stolen artefacts on Bothawui, they just evolved into something different. It is not as if the Council thinks that I am more ready than you are for important missions, my missions just got crazy while yours were normal. I've had enough of crazy missions, I'll take your boring missions and you can have my crazy ones, deal?"

"I'm not sure it works like that, Sascha."

"Oh. Well, let's just say that I have faith that your accomplishments will come, Nara. You have a long career ahead of you. Just be patient, the accolades will come."

Nara nodded emphatically, "They will, won't they?"

Sascha slung an arm around her, and Nara smiled and leaned against it, "They will come if the Force wills it. And the Force is strong with you, Nara Nalto."

Sascha removed his arm, and Nara stood, "That was a helpful conversation, Sascha. I don't know if I can fix everything at once, but I can work at it." Nara's enthusiasm seemed to be back, which he took as a good sign. Nara started towards the door, "I'm going to pick out some new clothes, want to come along?"

"I'm about the least fashion conscious Jedi in the Temple, but...I'll do anything for a friend."

* * *

The next day Sascha was completing his morning routine when he heard Nara knock on his door. He rose and opened the door. Nara's new clothes had arrived, and she struck a glamorous pose so that he could see them in all their glory. She was dressed in a grey Jedi robe, it was a lighter shade than his own but it was cut far more stylishly than his robe, for example instead of Sascha's practical belt, she had opted for a tasteful gray and black obi that cut across her waist.

The Togruta definitely looked older and more mature with these new clothes than she previously did. Still he couldn't resist the easy joke, "Gray? I'm flattered you want to look like me…"

Nara shoved him playfully, and he stumbled backwards, "Gray happens to go well with my purple colouring."

"Sure, that's a good excuse…"

This time Nara swatted him hard in the chest with an open palm, "Ow. I'm going to end up purple if you keep hitting me," Sascha joked, "Though why did you go with a robe? Other Togruta tend to wear tighter clothing, more traditional Togruta inspired fashion."

Nara placed her hands on her hips, "Oh, I guess you wanted to see me in a tank top and skirt? Was that the kind of fashion that you wanted to see me in?"

Sascha blushed and stammered, searching for a good response.

She smiled at his obvious discomfort, "It's so easy to make you blush Whitestar, but don't worry I have a good reason for sticking with traditional Jedi clothing, If I'm going to be a Jedi, I'm going to dress like a Jedi. At least when I am dressed like this no one will confuse me for a youngling that stole a lightsaber."

"All that matters is that you are happy with it," he said, finally managed to find reasonable words to say.

Nara grinned, "I'm happy with it. See you when our Masters get back tomorrow?"

"You know it, Nara."


	11. Chapter 11: Happy Returns

**Lord Darth Yoda** \- Good spot. Bad editing on my part. Yeah Nara makes for a great foil for Sascha, she's not a stand-in for Tyra in any way, she's (as you said) in a much more similar spot in her own life so its only natural that she and Sascha get along so well. I think Sascha's remarked on it a few times, but there was always this perception in his mind that Tyra was 'older' than he was. Now Nara's a year _younger_ than him, so its kind of a flip on that dynamic.

 **thejoker122-** Winter seems really far away when it's 30+ degrees outside! I live in Canada, it's not supposed to be this hot!

 **SpeechbubbleMe** \- You had to mention starting college...That makes me feel old! But seriously, enjoy college, go out, have fun - these are the best times in your life (though it sometimes does _not_ seem like it at the time.) Just publish when you can and know you'll always have at least one reader.

A/N - I've got nothing!

Please enjoy the next chapter!

* * *

 **Chapter 11: Happy Returns**

It was good to be home.

That was what Aurine Brynar was thinking as she watched Tiplee bring their ship in for a perfect landing in the hangar bay of the Jedi Temple. Their mission had gone according to plan, which had been a nice change from the chaos and unpredictability of her last two missions. She and Tiplee had been able to have a nice, quiet settlement conference between the mining guilds, headed by Heuristic Mining, and the largest union of workers on the planet.

It turned out, that when the two sides got to meet face to face, they weren't as far apart as they had seemed.

Of course, that might have been because of the moderator. During the conference, Tiplee had simply sat in between the two sides and held court. The Jedi Knight had managed to both be perfectly fair and neutral as well as intimidating, cutting off both participants when they started leveling accusations at the other. It had been, in Aurine's opinion, a masterclass of arbitration. Both sides had gotten small victories that they could present to their stakeholders, and both sides had left more annoyed by the Jedi than the other side. But that was fine. Tiplee could take their stares and muttered words without losing a wink of sleep over it. What mattered was that there was peace and a lasting solution.

While the Rishati angled the ship so it could fit into their assigned landing spot, Aurine, who was beside her in the co-pilot's chair, searched for and found their two apprentices. Sascha and Nara were in the distance, waiting patiently for them with their hands folded behind their backs. It didn't take more than one look to determine that something had changed with her apprentice. He seemed…comfortable in his own skin again. A quick probe into the Force showed her that Sascha's Force presence had generally returned to as it had been before their mission to Bothawui.

It seemed as if Tiplee's plan may have just worked.

Yet there was something about watching Nara and Sascha standing there together that caught her eye. There were an interesting pair, both were about the same height, if you included Nara's montrals that gave her a bit of extra stature, and there was something about them standing there that seemed…right, as odd a word as that seemed to be.

As she watched, Nara turned and nudged Sascha impishly in the rib. Sascha, to his credit, didn't flinch, but he did smile at the Togruta's mischievousness. Aurine found herself nodding and smiling, this was much more like the Padawan that she had chosen to be her apprentice, an intelligent, light-hearted boy that was probably too emotional for his own good, but who was someone who seemed to have been born with no deeper purpose than to help others. It seemed like, just maybe, Sascha Whitestar was back.

Thank the Force for that, she thought.

Though a small piece of her speculated that they may have just conspired to replace Tyra with Nara, and she wondered if Sascha would soon find himself attracted to the Togruta. Nara and Tyra were two very different young women, but there were enough similarities between the two to suggest that Sascha might fall hard for Nara, especially if he was looking for some sort of surrogate for his old friend Tyra Harker.

She and Tiplee had watched the recording of Sascha and Nara fight against the four Initiates while on their flight back. Watching Sascha and Nara fight together had brought back memories of watching how Sascha and Tyra had once fought together on Kuat. But because Sascha was usually so open with his emotions that he was able to forge strong partnerships with other Jedi that he worked with quickly, it was just one of his talents.

A slight bump indicated that they had landed and her companion started going into her post-flight checklist. Tiplee noticed her staring out the viewport, "A good pair, are they not?"

"I was just thinking that there was something about them standing there that seems right. I don't know why that word came to mind, but I can't get it out of my head."

The Rishati nodded, "Perhaps if their friendship is as strong as it seems, we may see more of each other on missions."

"I'd like that, Master Tiplee." She had enjoyed Tiplee's company more than she had expected, while the mission itself had been straightforward, they had worked well together. The Rishati was an amiable, if sometimes stern companion, not the friendliest Jedi ever, but hardly the least-friendly either.

Post-flight procedure complete, the two Jedi Knights walked down the ramp of their ship and towards their apprentices, "Welcome back, Masters," they both said in unison.

Aurine raised her eyebrows, "Sascha, you seem better."

He nodded, "Yes, Master."

"And Nara, I see you've made a change of wardrobe," said Tiplee. Aurine rather liked the new look that Nara had. While it would have been hard, if not impossible, for any garment to contain Nara's buoyant personality, the Togruta certainly looked older and mature in her new gray robe. Though she didn't know why Nara had chosen to make such a change, she had a feeling that Sascha may have been a part of that decision.

"I have, Master Tiplee," replied Nara.

The Jedi Knights shared a brief look and a covert smile, "It seems like we have much to discuss, Padawans. Perhaps we should find a room and talk about what transpired while we were gone," said Tiplee. Sascha and Nara shared a smile of their own and fell into position beside their respective Masters.

She and Tiplee found a large meditation room that was empty and all four Jedi sat in a loose square formation, though Aurine noted that the Padawans situated themselves closer to each other than their respective Masters. She filed that away for potential use. The nice, cool carpeted floor was a welcome change from the rigid co-pilot's chair she had been in for the last several hours and she stretched her legs out in front of her as she relaxed.

"Are we going to be meditating?" Nara asked.

"Perhaps later," Tiplee replied, "but it appears it was an eventful week for both of you."

Nara and Sascha glanced at each other, "I think it was a good week for both of us," said Nara.

Sascha sat straighter, "I'd like to start if I may," her Padawan received nods from the other Jedi. "First, I want to apologize," he said.

"Sascha…there is no need to make a public apology for anything you've done," she cut in.

"With respect, Master, I don't mind sharing this with Nara and Master Tiplee."

"Go ahead then, my apprentice."

A little smile played across his face upon being referred to as her apprentice, but he quashed it quickly, "I need to apologize to everyone because I let everyone down. I let myself become overwhelmed by my problems, but instead of leaning on the people that care about me, I decided that I knew best. I did not know best. I was selfish and stupid and pigheaded and intransigent…and I need a bigger vocabulary to describe how much I screwed up."

Sascha turned to her, "Master…there are no words that I can use to express my appreciation for you sticking with me while I acted like a petulant brat. I have been a terrible apprentice to you this past month. I've let you down again and again, but yet you've stuck with me. I've promised you before that I will be better and I haven't lived up to that promise." He shook his head at himself, "but instead of being weighed down by that failure, I will learn from my mistakes. I _will_ be the apprentice you want me to be, and I'm willing to put in the work to make sure that I can live up to your teachings."

Aurine was very, very happy to hear what Sascha had to say to her. It seemed as if Sascha had come to terms with himself again. Still, she couldn't go all mushy on him just because he _seemed_ to be back. She held his gaze and nodded sharply to him, "You will need to regain my trust, but you know how to do it."

His soft brown eyes looked back, showing his contrition, "That's all I ask, Master Brynar."

Sascha turned to Nara, "I treated you, and my other friends shamefully, and I am indebted to you for not being pushed away, for being the friend that I needed, for being the person who showed me the errors of my ways. I thought that because I lost one friend due to my own mistakes, that I could not afford to weigh down my other friends. It was…" he clenched his fists, "idiotic of me. Strength through connections is written on my lightsaber, and it is up to me to ensure that there is strength in those connections and not allow them to become weaknesses. Obviously I failed in that task."

"I'm just happy you are back to your old ways Sascha," said Nara with a smile, "and as far as debts go…let's just say we are even."

"Thank you, my friend," responded Sascha, smiling warmly at Nara who responded in kind.

"I wanted to apologize publicly as well," declared Nara.

The Jedi Knights shared a look of surprise, "I was not aware that you have done anything that required an apology, Padawan," said Tiplee.

"And yet I still feel obligated to apologize. Master Tiplee, I have not been the apprentice that I should have been, and Sascha has helped me see that. With Sascha's help, I was able to see that I was stuck in the idea that I was unworthy of being a Padawan, and this has affected the way I act on missions. I haven't seized the initiative because I felt unworthy of the responsibility you've given me. That is why I'm not at my best when we leave the Temple."

Nara bowed her head, "Master Tiplee, I wanted to apologize because I think I needed to humble myself in front of you and my peers. Despite what I have thought in the past, I'm not superior than any of my fellow Jedi, in fact I'm much worse. But I know that with you, Master Tiplee, that I can be the Jedi that everyone thinks I can be."

Aurine was surprised by the confession from Nara. Although Tiplee had expressed that she felt that Nara was perhaps not fulfilling her potential, Aurine had not expected such a fast turnaround. She shrugged, thanking the Force for small miracles.

Tiplee seemed moved though, "I had hoped for you to realize as much, but I am overjoyed to hear you come to that realization yourself." Tiplee glanced significantly at Sascha, "Or, perhaps do I have another Padawan to thank?"

He shook his head, "We may have talked, but Nara came to these conclusions herself."

"Then I look forward to many more productive conversations with you, my apprentice," Tiplee said to Nara. The Togruta bowed her head gently in acknowledgement.

There was so much positivity swirling around the room that each Jedi took their time to bask in it briefly. For her part, she was overjoyed to see Sascha acting like his 'normal' self again, and while she wasn't sure that he was completely back to his best, he at least seemed capable of getting there. It felt like a weight had been lifted from her, and she was delighted to get the chance to resume teaching her Padawan. Yet, there were some moments of interest still to discuss.

Tiplee started up the conversation again, "Why don't we start with the sparring drill with you two facing off against those Initiates that we arranged Master Drallig to run?"

Sascha shook his head in confusion, "Wait…you arranged that?"

Tiplee inclined her head briefly, "I knew that Master Drallig wanted a Padawan to run his Initiates versus Padawans drill and I suggested Nara be one of the Padawans. It wasn't hard to see that she'd pick you to be her partner."

"Why the deception, Master Tiplee?" asked Sascha.

"If it seemed like you were being pushed together, you would have resented it, but if it seemed like happenstance…well the possibilities seemed endless. Though perhaps I may have overthought it," Tiplee said with a faint tinge of embarrassment.

The two Padawans shared a brief look with each other, but Aurine could tell that they were not bothered at being subject to their Masters machinations. They both seemed to find it fairly amusing.

Sascha spoke up, "Even though I was…I am massively out of shape, we really fought well together. It surprised me to be sure."

"It surprised me too," Nara chimed in. "It really seemed like we had a strong connection in the Force, though I'm not sure why."

"It makes sense to me," said Tiplee. "You two have history together and a burgeoning friendship. Even in combat, the two of you complement each other. Sascha is more defensive, more intellectual, and he has a good mind for seeing the bigger picture. Nara you are more offensive, and instinctual. So you balance each other. In addition, neither of you see each other as superior nor inferior to yourselves, so you are able to subvert yourself to the other if the occasion demands it."

"I suppose that makes sense," agreed Sascha.

"We sparred against each other yesterday as well," said Nara.

"I'm fat, she crushed me, nothing to learn from that," Sascha replied flatly. The two Masters smiled. While by no means was Sascha fat in the traditional sense, in the Jedi Temple, where being in peak physical shape was the norm, it was obvious that the young human was fairly out of shape.

"So, Padawan Nalto, how did you get Sascha to talk when all other attempts to get him to talk failed?" Aurine asked, very curious as to the answer.

The red stripes on Nara's montrals and lekku flared brightly for a moment, "I…um…may have entered his room without permission, then tackled him and pinned him to the ground until he agreed to talk to me."

"I assume you fought back, Padawan," commented Aurine.

This time it was Sascha's turn to blush, "I resisted briefly, but poorly," he admitted.

Tiplee blinked slowly, processing the information, "And what made you think that physically assaulting your fellow Padawan was a good course of action, apprentice?"

"I thought that by flirting with him, I might get him to open up and talk to me…I made a mistake," admitted Nara, clearly very embarrassed at having to tell this story.

Sascha put a hand up to forestall further comments, "It's okay…I needed that sort of wake-up call. I wasn't hurt and I accept that Nara did what she did in good faith."

Aurine shrugged, "She could have held you at blaster point for all I care."

"That was going to be my next course of action," Nara replied sarcastically.

"So what did you talk about," prodded Tiplee.

"We just…talked. I told her everything that had happened to me, all the fears that I had, and we just talked through them. She made me see things in a different light, and I was finally able to make sense of it all."

"I told him he was being stupid," said Nara, who gently shoved Sascha with her left arm.

"She used slightly nicer language than that," replied Sascha. "But I also think that being tackled by one of my good friends was something of a symbol of how low I'd fallen. As crazy as it might seem, I think I needed that."

"We should call it physical therapy," Nara joked lightly.

How odd was it after all the conversations that Sascha had been given over the past month, conversations with Jedi Masters and Jedi healers, that it was this one conversation with a fellow Padawan that had changed everything. Maybe it hadn't just been that conversation, Aurine thought, maybe it had just been an accumulation of everything. Maybe Sascha had just needed that last month to calibrate himself to a new, Tyra Harker-less reality.

Or maybe he'd just replaced Tyra with Nara.

But that seemed like a battle for another day. Today she was willing to take this victory for what it was worth.

"We also meditated together," said Sascha.

Tiplee smiled indulgently, "You got Nara to meditate? You _must_ tell me how you managed that."

"I wanted to help my friend," said Nara. "And I was willing to do something that I don't like to do so. It...wasn't bad, really," she admitted.

"That is what I've been trying to tell you, Padawan," said Tiplee lightly.

"Maybe I'm learning," said Nara. "Maybe if I need some pointers about meditation technique I'll talk to Sascha."

"I'll be happy to provide them, my friend," said Sascha.

"I'm curious as to what caused you to change your wardrobe, Nara," said Tiplee.

Nara looked at the ground for a moment, "It was something Sascha said. It made sense so I made the change." Nara sighed, "I'm starting to realize that I really just needed someone to talk to," she admitted, "not that I couldn't talk to you, Master," she added quickly. "Having someone my own age is just different to talk to. It's talking to someone that understands what I am going through."

"I'm not offended Nara, a Padawan should have people other than her Master that they can talk to," replied Tiplee. "Was anything you talked about particularly helpful?"

Nara considered for a moment, then shook her head, "I don't think our talk was that significant actually, I just had all these ideas bumbling around in my head, and just by talking to someone I was able to sort them out. At least Sascha didn't have to tackle me to get me to talk, he just needed to be willing to listen like a good friend."

"I'm pretty sure if I tried to tackle you I would have ended up in some sort of unpleasant joint lock," Sascha joked amiably. "I'm always happy to help, Nara."

"I know that now Sascha."

Aurine was beginning to feel uncomfortable at the warmth displayed by the two Padawans. While she detected no deception in either of them, and no feelings stronger than friendship, the similarities between Nara and Tyra were too obvious to ignore. She decided that she would fire a warning shot across their bow.

"I am pleased for this new friendship," she said, striving to keep a neutral tone, but speaking sternly, "but I must warn about the dangers of attachment. You two are flirting like new lovers walking alongside the river of lust on Geldron." Tiplee shot her an odd look, but the two Padawans seemed appropriately chastened. Then at some sort of signal that she could not detect, they both burst out in laughter.

"I win," said Sascha with a smile, "You have to do my laundry for the next week."

Nara wrinkled her nose in disgust, "A fate worse than death."

"I don't smell that bad," Sascha replied defensively.

"Maybe not to you, but my sense of smell is much more sensitive than yours. You, Sascha Whitestar, stink. You just don't know it."

"Hey!"

"Well, at least you aren't as bad as Trigg, now _he_ smells terrible..."

Both Padawans laughed hard, "Yeah, even I can smell him sometimes..." remarked Sascha.

Aurine raised a hand like she was a student in class, and Sascha acknowledged her with a nod, "Will someone fill me in on what this conversation is about?"

"Trigg smelling bad?" asked Sascha, suppressing a laugh.

"No, what you were laughing about earlier," she said, some frustration accidentally creeping into her voice.

Sascha smirked in Nara's direction, "Oh, I bet Nara that you'd bring up attachment in the first conversation after getting back."

Nara shook her head dejectedly, "I thought that she'd at least have the grace to go more than one conversation without bringing up attachment."

"Spoiler alert; I know my Master better than you do," Sascha said triumphantly.

Aurine felt her cheeks warming in embarrassment, and cursed herself for being so protective. Tiplee covered for her smoothly though, "I think you should answer Master Brynar."

Nara sat up straighter, "I flirt, you know this Master Tiplee. I don't mean anything by it. It's just...playful. Fun. Besides, Sascha isn't my type, I'm looking for a male Togruta that is at least six inches taller than me, has beautiful markings on their lekku, and has a skin colour that complements mine."

"I don't appear to fit any of those criteria," noted Sascha wryly.

Nara laughed briefly, "Don't worry about it Sascha, you're a reasonably cute human male…but humans are just so…boring. Hair. Pale skin. No lekku. No montrals. So plain. I actually feel sorry for you."

"I'm not worrying about it," Sascha replied.

"You don't find me attractive?" Nara asked jokingly.

Sascha shrugged nonchalantly, "You're a perfectly acceptable looking female Togruta. I haven't spent much time thinking about it, since I'm trying to get over being in love with my best friend."

Aurine was trying to keep pace with the fast-paced conversation between the two Padawans. While the two were certainly doing some light flirting, it did seem to be mostly harmless. "You've made your point well, Padawans, but remember to guard against attachment. I would hate to see a friendship as promising as this one be put asunder for feelings you both should know how to control."

Sascha nodded soberly, "I will, Master."

"I will too, Master Brynar," Nara said solemnly.

"Good," she said, "What remains of this evening is yours to do what you wish, but tomorrow morning we will resume your training."

Sascha bowed obediently, "I look forward to it, Master Brynar."

Nara nudged Sascha, "Do you still want to learn some of the Force skills I know?"

His eyes brightened, "Of course, Master Nalto," he said playfully.

Nara smiled and turned to both Jedi Knights, "By your leave, Masters." Aurine and Tiplee both nodded that they could go, so the two gray robed Padawans made their way out of the meditation chamber and down the hallway.

Once the door was closed, Tiplee leaned backwards, "So, that went better than expected."

Aurine nodded, "Sascha seems to be back to his normal self, and Nara seems to have made a breakthrough as well."

"She seems to have grown up significantly over the past few days," agreed Tiplee. The Rishati smiled wryly, "Does this make me a good Master, for finding the person that would have this sort of effect on her, or a bad Master, as I was unable to get her to see the errors of her ways myself?"

Aurine considered the question for a moment, "If there has been anything that I've learned about having a Padawan, its that you can only have so much influence on them. At a certain level, we are just guides."

"Hmmm. Well I seem to be guiding my Padawan in the right direction then."

Aurine shifted her shoulders slightly, stretching her neck, as it had developed slight cramp after being in the co-pilot's chair for several hours, "I'm a little worried about how...friendly they are," she admitted.

"You mean you are put off by their flirting," stated Tiplee.

"I know I must seem like an old grandmother, but yes. I don't think they are being more than playful with each other...right now. But given Sascha's history with female friends, I can't help but be wary."

"Let's see if I can put you more at ease then. I can tell you this about Nara...she doesn't mean anything by her flirting. I can tell you from observing her that when there is a boy she actually likes, she tends to act shyly around them. And she wasn't kidding about liking male Togruta either – she tends to get dumbstruck around good-looking Togruta males her age. Quite amusing to watch actually."

"So you are saying I shouldn't worry?"

Tiplee held her hands up, "I'm just saying that it would be absurd to worry over something that isn't happening. Padawans are allowed to flirt with each other. We should not be telling them to stop, otherwise they'll just continue to do it when we aren't around. And besides, if they were truly attracted to each other, do you think that they would flirt in front of us? No! They'd be skulking around, meeting up in secret. They are just a young man and a young woman enjoying a strengthening friendship."

There really wasn't much Aurine could say to that. She was probably just being overprotective. "Well, I think we should salute new friends and new beginnings."

The Rishati looked back at her, a smile on her lean features, "To new friends."

Aurine smiled back. Today was shaping up to be a good day. Tomorrow would hopefully be even better. For the first time in a month, everything seemed to be exactly as it should be.


	12. Chapter 12: Recovery, Time Passes

**Lord Darth Yoda** \- Aurine's both correct and being a wet blanket at the same time. Aurine does have a protective side, one that we've seen manifest itself a couple of times. The only question if she's being too overprotective, or if she's just warning Sascha, "hey, I've seen this happen before, don't you go getting feelings for _another_ girl."

A/N - So we are going to do a timeskip in the chapter, because I kind of need for our characters to age up - I could write 16 year old Sascha forever, but at a certain point, I want to get to things like the Clone Wars and such...its not going to happen anytime soon, but if I don't start moving along, I'll never get there! So this is a bit of a connecting chapter, but we'll be right into our feature mission in the next chapter

Please enjoy the next chapter!

* * *

 **Chapter 12: Recovery, Time Passes  
**

Aurine Brynar walked into her favourite refectory in dire need of caf. She was suffering from travel lag – her body was trying to figure out exactly when the sun was supposed to come up and according to her internal clock, that was not supposed to happen for another few hours. The fact that it was morning on this section of Corsucant had left her body feeling _very_ confused. Despite being space travelers for thousands of years, humans were still slaves to their internal clock, and even a Jedi was not immune to being thrown out of wack. She could have taken one of the many over-the-counter drugs that counteracted the effects of travel...but she had forgotten to acquire them before she went to sleep. And now she was paying the price for her mistake.

She figured that the best way to get a start on her day was to get a nice breakfast and some strong caf. She was walking towards the caf dispenser when she saw Sascha already seated at one of the trestle tables. He had a meal laid out for himself (untouched), and he had also set up another meal across from him. Through her pre-caf haze she finally noticed that he was waving her over. Grateful, she pulled up the chair across from her Padawan and sat down.

"Morning, Master."

Aurine surveyed the meal in front of her. The cup of steaming hot caf immediately drew her attention, but Sascha had also picked out a complete breakfast for her. There was a small bowl of her favourite fruits on one side, along with a couple of pancakes that were drenched in a strong, brown syrup. It all looked so delicious she hardly knew where to start, and her stomach started grumbling, demanding that she satisfy it with the delicious foodstuffs in front of her.

"How did you know?"

"I'm just that good," Sascha said with a smile.

Her brain finally caught up to her, "You talked to Luminara, didn't you?"

"I talked to Luminara," Sascha laughed. "She said that you always need a good breakfast after travelling. So I made sure it was ready for you when you got here."

Aurine examined a slice of Calic fruit. The oval shaped fruit was perfectly lime green, indicating that it was ripe. She sliced the fruit in two and then chowed down on one of the halves, "You are just trying to get on my good side, aren't you?"

"Also true," said Sascha as he politely ate his own meal – eggs and muja juice.

Aurine munched some more on the food and spoke with her mouth half-full, "You know that this won't change anything. I'm still going to train you so hard that all you'll be able to do tonight is curl onto your bed and fall asleep."

Sascha nodded soberly, "I know. I wouldn't want it to be any other way." He grinned mischievously, "Also, we should probably be eating in silence, as per our usual tradition."

Aurine winced internally, their silent breakfasts had been a tradition that she'd carried over from her old Master, Nova Trynith, and here she was blabbing on in direct violation of that. Covering her disappointment in herself, she nodded to her apprentice, indicating that the rest of the meal should be consumed in silence. Which it was. Neither Jedi ate quickly. She took the time to savour the sweetness of the fruits that Sascha had selected for her. Her apprentice didn't appear to be in any great hurry either, eating his food at a leisurely pace.

Once they were both done with their meal, Sascha simply folded his hands in his lap and said, "I'm ready."

"Ready for what?"

"To start training."

She smiled, "Sascha, we just ate. We don't need to immediately start running laps right after breakfast. I'll train you hard, but I'm not a monster.

Sascha looked abashed, "Okay. I just wanted to prove that I'm ready for whatever you want me to do."

"I'm pleased to hear you say that, but you'll have to prove it with your actions."

He smiled confidently, "I won't break, Master."

Aurine looked back at her apprentice in surprise. That was a relatively bold statement of intent from someone who didn't make those very often. But there was an aura of confidence around Sascha now, and she got the sense that Sascha's entire body and soul was committed to the Jedi Order. It would be up to her to make sure it stayed that way.

"I don't want you to break. But we are going to spend a substantial amount of time working on things that you are not good at, and I won't give you a break like I usually do. This is going to be serious training."

"Good."

"But first, we have to get you back into shape," she remarked wryly. "I don't want be the Master that has a fat little Jedi as their apprentice."

"I'm _not_ fat," Sascha said defensively, "Though I am certainly out of shape."

Aurine used a wipe to clean off her hands, "Well, lets get started on that problem then, shall we?"

"I'm going to be sore tonight, aren't I?"

"Yup," Aurine said cheerfully.

Sascha grinned, "I'll follow your lead Master. Whatever you want me to do."

Over the next few weeks Aurine pushed the hell out of her Padawan. It was almost as if she had become a drill sergeant. But not only did Sascha thrive under her training, he excelled under it. Even as she trained Sascha as hard as she knew how, Sascha remained the upbeat, personable young man with the wry sense of humor that she had come to know as one of her closest companions.

His growth was truly a pleasure to watch. It didn't come in obvious ways, it was more subtle than that. Sascha seemed to have found a level of confidence in himself that suggested that he was finally happy with his life, in his role in the Jedi Order. While before, Sascha would often groan and complain about doing things that he didn't necessarily enjoy, now he seemed to work to find little thing within these tasks that he enjoyed.

Sascha Whitestar was growing up, right in front of her eyes.

Quietly, she made time for him to reconnect to each of his friends when they returned to the Temple. His friendships, several of which he had damaged over the previous month, seemed to have were repaired without too much difficulty. The only thing that really changed was that Nara seemed to occupy a special place in his hierarchy of friends. She was the person he wanted to hang around with, and the Jedi he wanted to collaborate with, if given the chance. Their flirting continued to be annoying, but they seemed to have gotten kind of bored with it, and it had become somewhat toned down.

They were still playful with each other, but she figured that they would eventually grow out of it as they got older. Given that life as a Jedi was so serious, it was nice to have someone to just relax with and play games, or watch the holonet. While she still monitored their relationship, it appeared they had clearly formed boundaries between each other as well, if either felt even slightly uncomfortable, they could just raise the tone of voice just slightly and the other would take the hint and stop.

But that was the only drawback with Nara and Sascha's friendship. True to Tiplee's beliefs, the Togruta and her Padawan were excellent partners, their relationship was a truly beneficial one. Nara seemed to have benefited the most, evolving into a young women right in front of everyone's eyes. While it appeared doubtful that Nara would ever tone down her exuberance, she had at least seemed to be able to moderate it now.

As a few weeks passed, Sascha caught up to his previous level of training, and then quickly surpassed it. He was still behind many of his peers his own age, but at the rate he was improving, she didn't think it would last for very long. While her apprentice was not particularly talented in the ways of the Force, and he would never be amongst the best duelists in the Jedi Order, he continued to develop as a decent defensive fighter, his work in form three, Soresu, was coming along nicely.

After a while, she eased off the intense training and let things go back to normal, content that Sascha didn't need her to oversee every moment of his training, he could do large parts of it on his own. For her, it was a display of faith, of confidence that said that despite what had happened, that Sascha had her trust. It was something that she didn't want to talk about through words, but through actions.

A couple of months after her last mission, she finally received another assignment. This time her mission was from the Council of Reconciliation, one of the theoretically less prestigious of the Jedi Councils, not that she cared. The mission was simple, oversee some security concerns of a large and complicated trade deal between two hostile corporations. It didn't exactly seem like it would be the highlight of her career, but both sides had asked for a neutral party AKA, a Jedi, to oversee the security of their meeting at Toryaz Station in the Kuat system and she had been assigned. The only question was whether she wanted to take her Padawan on this mission. However, after she considered it, she easily came to her decision.

She found Sascha near the library, helping a young Twi'lek Initiate with some finer aspects of meditation. Many teachers at the Temple found Sascha to be a good mentor to the younger Jedi, so it was not unheard of to see him working closely with a Jedi much younger than he was. Not wanting to disrupt his lesson, she merely waited by the door and watched Sascha end his lesson. Sascha noticed her at the door and acknowledged her with a quick nod, indicating that he was just wrapping things up.

"So, Initiate Enul'chori do you feel that you understand the precepts of meditation better?" he asked his student.

"I do, Master…Padawan Whitestar, thank you for being patient with me…and for demonstrating me the techniques that I had trouble with."

Sascha smiled fondly at the blue-skinned Twi'lek, "You have to remember to slow down your thoughts, Initiate Enul'chori, you want to do everything so quickly, meditation requires patience of mind. Frustration is your biggest enemy. But it is one easily defeated!" Sascha checked his chrono, "Now don't be late for your galactic politics class, I don't want Master Leem to be angry with me."

"Thank you, for the lesson," said the Twi'lek as he bowed quickly before scurrying out of the room.

Aurine watched the young Twi'lek dash past her with an amused look on her face, "Does Master Leem even know how to be angry?" Maks Leem, a Gran, was one of the more beloved teachers in the Jedi Order, and probably hadn't been angry since she was four years old.

"I don't think she does, but the Initiates don't know that," Sascha remarked wryly. He bowed politely to her, "What can I do for you, Master?"

She ignored his question, "How did the lesson go?"

"It went pretty well. Meditating is hard for any ten year old, but Mister Enul'chori is still grappling with the basics. I think he's actually afraid to meditate."

"Any theories why?"

Sascha smiled, "I think that he wants to save the galaxy so badly that he considers a moment of meditation a moment that he cannot be a hero. I need to get him to see that he needs to find balance within himself first, before he can be the galaxy's most famous Jedi Knight."

"A good theory. You missed your calling, Padawan, you would have made a fine psychiatrist."

"I didn't miss my calling," Sascha replied quietly.

"No. You didn't," she said proudly.

Her Padawan bowed his head fractionally, acknowledging the praise. "Master, I know you didn't come here just to have this discussion, so could you kindly get to it?"

"Blunt words, my apprentice."

"I'm right though."

He was right, of course. But she didn't necessarily want him to know that. "Walk with me, apprentice."

Dutifully, Sascha aligned himself just off of her right shoulder and matched her pace as she walked through the halls of the Jedi Temple, with no particular destination in mind. "I have been given a mission, Sascha."

He nodded, "I'll get started on research support for you," he said politely. Sascha must have noticed that she said 'I have a mission' and not 'We have a mission.' But despite the fact that he must have been disappointed by her not taking him on the mission, he hadn't reacted...at all to the news. That impressed her. She had previously overheard him saying that being left behind on a mission was a fate worse than death. Then to turn around and not bat an eye when that exact fate was offered to him was impressive. It may have swung her decision, if she had not already made it.

"You're coming with me, Padawan."

Sascha's eyebrows rose, but beyond that he did not react, "…and if you would give me the information on the mission, I'll get started on research."

"I think I'd like to talk with you before we get started on mission planning,"

Now Sascha seemed confused, but he nodded anyway. "I want you to know Sascha, that your performance over the past few weeks has been exemplary. I know I don't go out of my way to praise you very often, but know that I am proud of you." She placed a hand softly on his shoulder, "I am proud to be your Master."

Sascha looked up at her with his deep brown eyes, "I am proud to be your apprentice, Master Brynar."

She smiled, feeling pride welling in her chest, "I want preliminary research on Toryaz station on my datapad in an hour. I want you to pack as if we may not return to the Temple for some time, I have a feeling that we may not be back for many months."

Sascha nodded soberly and she could almost see him cataloguing what he wanted to bring for such a long-term trip. "Are we taking the _Emerald Dream_?" he asked. The _Emerald Dream_ was Sascha's ship, which had been given to him by the people of his homeworld, Sluis Van. It had taken undergone some rather extensive repairs after being just about shot out of the sky on Balmorra, but it had been back to working condition for some time now.

"We are. I talked with the technicians and they said that it is in perfect condition. It's your ship, we might as well use it." She continued in a lighter tone of voice, "Though for all the trials and tribulations you've put me through I've decided I will fly it to Toryaz station. That is your punishment – you will have to watch me fly your ship"

Sascha grinned, "Fair enough, Master. All I want is to be by your side."

Aurine ruffled his hair affectionately, "That is all I ask, my Padawan. See you in an hour."

* * *

 _Almost a Year Later, Jedi Temple, Coruscant_.

Sascha shook his head in frustration as the end game screen popped up on his holodisplay, indicating his defeat. "I almost had you that time, Master," he said ruefully.

Truth be told, he almost had, realized Aurine Brynar. They were back at the Temple for a well-deserved rest after many months away on various missions across the galaxy. Having been bereft of the facilities of the Temple for a long time, she and Sascha had decided to celebrate their return by playing one of the fleet commander games that were available at the Temple.

Her Padawan was a strong tactical thinker, and as he aged and got more comfortable with himself, he was growing into a commander that could even rival her. She could see that one day, maybe even one day soon, that he would surpass her as a tactician, though perhaps only when it came to fleet tactics. Army tactics were her forte and there were few in the galaxy that she would consider her equal. Fleet tactics she was not as strong in, and that was where Sascha excelled. Every time they played, he would find a new wrinkle to throw at her, and the one he had used this time had been just short of spectacular.

Knowing her Padawan as well as she did, she knew that he preferred solid, defensive strategies, and thus she would often array her forces in a greedy fashion, knowing that Sascha was not inclined to want to punish her for that. This time was different, right from the get-go, Sascha had harassed and harried her forces away from tactically significant areas, and while he kept his capital ships in a tight, defensive formation, he let his Starfighters and corvettes have a huge amount of tactical freedom, which he used to cause havoc with her ships.

Not used to this sort of strategy from her Padawan, Aurine had been put on the back foot for much of the encounter. Eventually, she had spotted the one opening that he had given her, and made him pay for a touch of sloppiness. Sucking him in to a fight he thought he could win with his Starfighters and remaining corvettes, she had cleverly hidden her own corvettes and then unleashed them when he least expected it. There was simply too much room between his capital ships and his raiding force and she had taken advantage of it. If he had been more decisive, less defensive, he would have eventually pulled her forces apart and won. But he hadn't. This time, at least.

They spent at least half an hour discussing the various tactical missteps that he had made, and by the end of the lesson, she could tell that she had just added one more trick to his ever growing arsenal. It was almost a shame that he'd likely never have a use for such proficiency in fleet tactics.

At the end of their conversation, he shook his head, "I really thought I was going to win that one," he said.

She laughed, "Sascha you are seventeen, you wouldn't even be allowed in most navies - you aren't supposed to be able to command as well as that."

He nodded, "I know. And it's not like I'll need to worry about commanding a fleet anytime soon, as I'm pretty sure we won't be going to war with the Republic's almost non-existent fleet. Best I'll ever get to do is command some Judicial forces"

"Unless the military creation act gets passed, as it seems to be always threatening to do." The military creation act had been around in various forms for what seemed like hundreds of years. The Republic did not have an army and the navy that it maintained was tiny. Theoretically, the ships of the defence forces of the various charter members of the Republic could be used for military actions, and several systems were more than willing to lend them out, if given appropriate compensation. The fact that the Republic didn't have a navy was fine by Aurine, the Republic was so dominant, that it seemed impossible that any force could rise up and challenge their supremacy. Still, some politicians wanted a big, shiny fleet to command and would never stop in their efforts to get one made. The Naboo crisis had only strengthened those beliefs, as the blockade of Naboo could have easily have been ended by sending the fleet to Naboo and crushing the Trade Federation fleet.

"We might need a navy to track down the renegade ships of the Trade Federation military that didn't come in to be decommissioned," Sascha commented.

After their overreach at Naboo, the Senate had moved to take away the battleships from the Trade Federation, wisely concluding that a business that was reliant on trade did not need massive military ships to guard its shipping. Still, not all Trade Federation commanders had volunteered to bring in their ships to be decommissioned, or have their ships stripped of turbolasers and other weaponry. Some had scuttled their fleet in protest, some were probably being hidden by the Trade Federation, and several had gone rogue, creating a pirate fleet that had battleships under their control. Not exactly a pleasant thought.

"Not a problem you need to worry about, Padawan."

Sascha nodded and stood up from his terminal, he had grown slightly in the last year, though he was still below average height. His growth was more obvious in another sense; he had grown less childish, more aware of what his responsibility as a Jedi Knight would be. It made him more sombre in public, but he still had his sarcastic sense of humour that he would unleash from time to time.

Their time together since his recovery had not come without trials, but neither had they had the dramatic moments of their first two missions. Their first two missions had been outliers, really, what they had been doing for some time now was more standard. Important work, surely, delivering medicine to planets, negotiating peace treaties and providing security to trade agreements were the core of what Jedi like Aurine did. She was a peacekeeper first and foremost, rarely did she have to ignite their lightsaber, which suited her just fine.

"Have you seen Nara since you got back?" she asked. It would have been months since he had last seen his friend, though they had probably been swapping messages over the Holonet, just to stay in touch.

Sascha looked confused for a brief moment before responding, "She's not at the Temple right now, so no."

"Do you know when she is getting back?"

"Why would I know that?" he asked, confused.

"I thought you might want to keep track of your friend."

Sascha shook his head vehemently, "I think that would only lead to attachment, Master."

Aurine frowned, but respected his decision, "As you wish, Padawan."

Her Padawan clearly sensed that the issue was not settled, "Master, I'm friends with Nara, and I know you aren't always comfortable with how we act with each other, but if I started keeping track of her and sending her messages on missions, I'd be thinking of her, when I need to be thinking about me. That's what I've learned about attachment. It wasn't just that I was physically attracted to Tyra, it's that I spent time ever day thinking about her. That, more than anything led to me becoming attached to her. I'm not going to make the same mistake with Nara."

Aurine smiled, sensing that Sascha had found a sort of balance with his emotions. It was all well and good to be attracted to girls, because, well, he was still human and that was natural. What mattered was balance, and knowledge that you were bound first and foremost to the Force and the Jedi Order and second to your emotions. "You have grown wise, my apprentice."

Sascha shrugged self-deprecatingly, "Perhaps I have, but I don't feel all that wise. I made a mistake once, and it cost me my best friend. I now know how to manage my emotions better, and this is just part of it. Nara knows this as well. I think we are both very comfortable with our friendship."

"What about Tyra, have you heard from her?"

A flash of pain rippled across Sascha's youthful features, "No."

"Do you know if she's done her mission?"

"I don't know…and I don't want to even look it up."

"You're afraid to find out," she speculated.

Sascha looked downwards, "Yeah."

"Do you want me to look for you?"

"I'd prefer you didn't. I'm confident that she's alive...I'm pretty sure I would have felt her..." Sascha swallowed hard, "...die."

She laid a hand on Sascha's shoulder, "I'm sure she's alive, Padawan."

"I...just...if Tyra was here...I don't even know what I would say to her." He sighed dramatically, "It's just that I'm happy with myself for really what feels like the first time in my life. But Tyra's this sort of wildcard in my life. Will I be able to be friends with her again? I feel like I'm over my feelings for her, but that is easy to say when she's not here..."

"She still means a lot to you," she said, somewhat surprised. It had been a long time since the name 'Tyra Harker' had been broached by either of them.

Sascha's chin lifted, "She always will...I hope."

Aurine was about to reply, when she heard a voice come from behind them, "Hey Sascha!"

She quickly identified the voice as belonging to Trigg, and when she turned, she was not exactly surprised to see Doro beside the stocky Padawan. She gently shoved her Padawan towards his friends, "I see that some of your other friends are here, go have fun for a while, Sascha."

Sascha bowed insultingly low, "As you command, my Master."

Aurine rolled her eyes and left the three Padawans to their reunion.


	13. Chapter 13: First Steps, Understanding

**Lord Darth Yoda** \- I think the whole experience really humbled Sascha. You are right to say that he doesn't expect to be taken on the mission, because he's humble enough to know that he _massively_ screwed up, so he doesn't expect to instantly get right back in Aurine's good graces. Aurine, of course, wants to get back to normal as soon as possible, and that means taking her Padawan on missions again. I'm looking forward to writing all these characters in the Clone Wars (if they survive that long) - going to be a _lot_ of fun.

 **thejoker122 -** Tyra's not going to be a big factor in this fic, but she'll return to the series...I mean I spent like two books setting up her character, she' not just going to go away!

A/N - I combined two chapters into one because they both were a little short. On to the mission :).

Please enjoy the next chapter! As always your favourites and follows are appreciated!

* * *

 **Chapter 13: First Steps/Understanding**

Nara Nalto collected herself for a brief second outside her Master's room. She didn't have the slightest idea why she had been summoned. But she didn't think that she had done anything wrong...recently, so it probably wasn't going to be a lecture.

She hoped.

She rang the chime before entering, "You wanted to see me, Master?" she said as entered her room.

Master Tiplee's room was one of the barest in the entire Temple. Most Jedi's rooms were pretty much the same, but many had customized them in some ways, whether that be having favoured possessions quietly displayed or various bits of species specific furniture in their room, no two rooms were exactly alike. For example, she had painstakingly carved the insignia for Shili into the ceiling of her room, as a way to make the room hers. Master Tiplee's room looked like it wasn't even being lived in.

But that was her Master. She was something of an enigma to her still, even after spending more than a year as her apprentice. While their relationship had become much better, they still weren't exactly close.

Inside the room, Master Tiplee was sitting with her legs folded underneath her, which was her standard meditation position. Mentally, Nara steeled herself for another meditation session with her Master. While the older she got, the more she was starting to see the uses of meditating, she was still too restless, too much of a predator to enjoy sitting in one place for hours on end. Her thoughts always ended up drifting away from the Force and on to inane things like a recent episode of a holodrama she watched. Or she would find herself wondering what was going to be served for dinner at the refectory. Meditation wasn't exactly supposed to go like that.

"We have a mission," Tiplee said, her feathery hair wafting around languidly to the unseen currents of the room.

Nara felt her eyes widen, "Already? We just got back from Deneba like two days ago!" Their mission hadn't been particularly hard or eventful, but she was used to getting at least a week to unwind between missions.

Her Master nodded soberly, "The demand for Jedi seems to be ever increasing, my apprentice. It seems like the days where we had time to rest may be in the past." Tiplee stared at her, "Are you ready for another mission, Nara? This mission is not so demanding, you could stay and work on your studies if you wish."

Nara wasn't about to take the offered excuse to stay behind, "I'm not that far behind on my coursework, and I can work on it if I get the time."

Despite being almost full Jedi in their own right, there were still mandatory classes that all Padawans took, luckily lessons were taught in a way that they did not need to be at the Temple itself. Nara had fallen behind schedule, partially because she had been busy with missions and partially because that sort of work didn't come that easy to her. She wasn't dumb by any stretch, but writing essays and compiling reports was not her forte.

Her Master shrugged and a small smile appeared on her face, "I didn't think you would be eager to take my offer, but remember you cannot delay your schoolwork forever. I don't want to see you denied the rank of Jedi Knight because you didn't want to do your reading."

"I'll get to it," she promised.

"Very well, you can come along – I think this should be a straightforward, relaxing mission, you might even have time to do some homework during the mission. We are being sent to Ubrora."

Nara racked her brain for anything related to 'Ubrora' and came up empty, "Am I supposed to know this planet, Master?"

Tiplee unrolled herself from her meditative position, "Unless you are an avid consumer of Thys root, no."

"Thys root?"

Tiplee sighed, "Thys root is ground up and used in pricey dessert dishes across the galaxy. Ubrora is the only place in the galaxy where it grows, despite many attempts to grow it offworld. Anyways, Ubrora has finally decided to join the Republic and we will be negotiating the treaty that brings them into it."

That sounds boring, Nara thought to herself. Not all missions that seemed boring ended that way she knew. She once had a boring trade negotiation turn into a very exciting mission filled with intrigue, assassin droids and bounty hunters. It had gotten perhaps a bit too exciting at points.

Master Tiplee was a respected diplomat and they often got missions that required hard negotiating rather than hard fighting, so she wasn't surprised to see another diplomatic mission be handed to them. "Is it just us going on the mission, Master?"

"The Council of Reconciliation has allowed me to choose another Jedi Knight to come with us on this mission, I was going to ask my sister, Tiplar." Nara looked at the ground at the mention of Tiplar, not that she had anything against her Master's twin sister, it was just that when the two sisters were together, she tended to be pushed to the background on missions.

"You don't want me to ask my sister," Tiplee observed.

Nara sighed and sat down across from her Master, "I like your sister, and she's a really good Jedi and probably a good pick to go with us, but..."

"…but we tend to ignore you when we go on missions together, yes, I'm aware."

Nara was surprised at the forthright admission, "I don't want to question you Master, but I wonder if maybe we could pair with someone else this time."

"You have someone in mind, don't you," Tiplee said with a half-smile.

There was no use in denying it, "What about asking Master Brynar. I know she and Sascha are awaiting another mission."

Tiplee paused and placed a delicate finger on her chin, "Very well, convince me that we should ask Master Brynar and her Padawan instead of my sister."

Nara took a moment to collate her argument, she knew her Master responded to logic and not emotion, therefore, simply saying that she wanted to go on a mission with her friend was likely to be counterproductive. "First, we can take Padawan Whitestar's ship. It's a good ship that would be acceptable for emissaries to fly."

"It's available to be booked?"

"Yes Master, I helped Sascha with some maintenance last night, and I'm fairly certain that it hadn't been checked out since."

"Having a ship ready to go would simplify things," Master Tiplee admitted, "As there is no public transport to Ubrora."

Nara pressed on with her arguments, "This is a diplomatic mission, and Sascha lacks diplomatic experience, he is often sent on missions that have more to do with security or peacekeeping. By taking him on this mission, we could give him more experience in this field."

"I'm not sure I could authoritatively talk about another Padawan's training, but his talents would seem to make him an excellent diplomat in the future."

"Sascha is also a great researcher and could help you with the negotiations."

Tiplee smiled wryly, "Are you saying that I need help?"

"I am saying that he would be an asset in any negotiation," she replied patiently.

"And you are willing to admit that he is your superior in this subject?"

"Master, I may be a bit too prideful for my own good, but Sascha outclasses me as a researcher and as a diplomat and in a half dozen things I could name off the top of my head." Nara grinned to herself, she also knew that she outclassed him in terms of martial ability and whole bunch of other things.

"Good to hear that you are not a perfect apprentice,"

"At least not yet," Nara joked. "Lastly, Sascha and I work well together, we have a way of understanding the other that I don't have with any other apprentice."

Tiplee raised a blue eyebrow at her, "And this would come in handy on this perfectly routine diplomatic mission…why exactly?"

"Because, Master Tiplee, together we would be capable of being paired together. There is a lot of legwork in ensuring that a planet conforms to all Republic regulations and we could deploy as three teams, Sascha and I, you, and Master Brynar."

"I'm not sure we'll ever need to resort to that, but your points are well made." Her Master nodded sharply, "Very well, my Padawan, I will talk to Master Brynar. Pack your things."

Nara resisted pumping her fist in celebration, "Thank you, Master Tiplee, you won't regret this."

"I know I won't. I'm actually looking forward to you working together with Sascha...but don't tell Aurine I said that."

Nara smiled and then frowned, "Why not?"

"Aurine's a bit overprotective, of Sascha...and she doesn't like it when you two flirt."

Nara sighed dramatically, "That's just _fun_ , Master, I'm not actually interested in Sascha."

Tiplee made a placating gesture, "I know. But since I am doing you a favour, I would consider it a favour if you toned down your flirting."

She nodded in acceptance, "I'll stop flirting with Sascha, though I reserve the right to flirt with any other cute boy that we come across on this mission."

Her Master smiled, "I doubt that I could restrain you, even if I tried."

"If you asked nicely, I would," Nara said seriously. Flirting was fun, and a way to be 'normal,' but she would stop doing it the second her Master told her to.

"It's okay, my apprentice. I'm just asking you to not flirt with this particular boy. Now go and tell him the good news. And then get packed, I don't want you forgetting something like last time..."

Nara blushed, "I'll make sure I have everything packed – and then I'll check it twice." She didn't want to leave her spare robe behind again – wearing the same robe during the course of an entire mission was a good way to have a smelly robe by the end of it.

Tiplee rose, "I'll go talk to Master Brynar, you go talk to Sascha."

Nara nodded at the dismissal and walked out of her Master's room. She was barely out the door when she took out her comlink and dialled Sascha's code, "Sascha, I have some good news…"

* * *

Aurine Brynar piloted the _Emerald Dream_ out of the hanger of the Jedi Temple, once again marveling at the smoothness of the flight. The Sluissi designed and built ship was probably one of the finest in its class, boasting outstanding manoeuvrability and shields, though it gave up a bit of firepower to compensate. The _Dream_ had been something of a second home for her over the past few months, as Sascha and her traversed the galaxy, so it was a bit odd to have Tiplee beside her in the co-pilots chair instead of Sascha. Her Padawan was currently occupied with doing some further research for the mission and he had enlisted Nara's help in his task.

Aurine completed the routine flight out of Coruscant's busy skylanes and out into the blackness of space, though it being Coruscant there still was enough traffic to be wary of. Finally the _Emerald Dream_ escaped the gravity well of Coruscant and she punched in the jump coordinates for the first leg of their three leg flight to Ubrora. The dazzing brightness of hyperspace greeted her through the viewscreen, though she had seen it so many times now, it had lost its lustre somewhat.

"Let's see what our apprentices have gotten up to," said Tiplee, rising from her co-pilots chair and heading back to the lounge area of the _Emerald Dream_.

The _Emerald Dream_ was not exactly the biggest or most comfortable of ships, while when it had been delivered to the Jedi Temple as a present to her Padawan it had come with some of the coziest comforts that money could buy. Over the years, they had just been sold to make room for better shields, better communication equipment and so on and so forth. Jedi did not need creature comforts. Truth be told she did not miss them one bit.

Aurine found Nara and Sascha working together in his room. His room was...kind of a disaster area with datapads, flimsy and other assorted materials strewn across the floor. Sascha had his head buried in a datapad, while Nara was staring intently at a holochart. The two Padawans didn't even seem to notice her arrival, and she doubted if they had even noticed that the ship had taken off and was now in hyperspace. Aurine stood in the open doorway and observed the pair, who were working in tandem, even doing something as mundane as background research.

As the minutes passed, Sascha finally spoke, though he didn't look up from his datapad either, "I think we are being watched."

"You distract her, and then I'll tackle her," Nara replied.

"Okay, on the count of three…"

"That will not be necessary, Padawans," she said, amused by the playful banter of the young Jedi.

The Togruta finally acknowledged her, "We need another hour before we are ready to present our research, Master Brynar," said Nara.

"I suppose I'll meditate until then. When you are ready find me and Master Tiplee." The two Padawans nodded absentmindedly and their focus turned back to their datapads before she even left the room.

She returned to her cabin, it was small and even barer then her room back on Coruscant. The one luxury was that the bed was far more comfortable than her bedroll, besides that, the walls were steel gray and unadorned. Even if given the chance to decorate what she had come to think of as her room, she had no idea what she would do with it. Put up a painting? Amused by that thought, she settled in for some peaceful meditation, allowing the Force to guide her thoughts as she drifted along its current.

Around an hour later she ended her meditation, feeling refreshed and ready to take on a Gundark with her bare hands. Unfortunately, there were no Gundarks to be found. Sascha and Nara were preparing their presentation, she had already read Tiplee's information about the mission, so she was already fairly informed about what she had gotten into. But, there was no harm in having a different perspective, and while Sascha certainly didn't need any more research practice, Nara did.

The lounge of the _Emerald Dream_ had enough room for four people, though barely. Sascha and Nara took the two chairs closest to the holoprojector, while she and Tiplee grabbed the two remaining seats. Sascha started without preamble, pressing a button on the holoprojector. After a brief delay, a picture appeared of a slender humanoid looking creature with short, coarse fur over its body that was brownish-red, along with long wavy hair that was almost black. Aurine noted a long bushy tail as well as intelligent green eyes, and a prominent snout. Sascha waved a hand at the display, "This, is your typical Ubroran, Ubrora is their homeworld. They are shorter than the average human, but their senses are superior to human standard as well. They are mammalian and intelligent though they are fairly fragile, their bone structure won't stand up to much punishment. The standard language of the planet is basic which is nice for us as we didn't need to bring a protocol droid along."

Nara leaned over and pressed another button on the holoprojector and a planet popped up on the display. "This is Ubrora. It is pretty small for a planet, it almost categorizes as an asteroid. The population of Ubrora is small, only around thirty million. There are only four major cities, each of which has a population of about five million. The remaining population is scattered about in towns and farming villages. The only thing of note is that the gravity of the planet is higher than Coruscant standard, which is probably why the average Ubroran is pretty short."

"What's the breakdown of land and water?" asked Aurine, posing a question that she already knew the answer to.

"There is only one continent which covers about sixty percent of the planet, the rest is ocean, or small uninhabited islands," replied Nara.

Aurine leaned back, "Seems pretty straightforward, how many non-Ubrorans are on planet?"

"Very few," Sascha answered, "The Ubrorans have some…quirks to their culture that make their planet hostile to 'foreigners.' We'll get to that later."

Sascha glanced briefly over to Nara, who took it as a signal to continue, "We prepared a brief history of Ubrora that will provide some context as to why Ubrora is the way it is." Tiplee looked a bit surprised at that announcement, but Aurine wasn't, she had been been on the other end of Sascha's briefings, they tended to be long and comprehensive. Nara started, "Ubrora was discovered by the Republic during the New Sith War, but its culture and technology was determined too primitive, so it was left to prosper on its own for a few hundred years. When they were finally ready to join galactic civilization, they chose not to join the Republic, and no one cared. Ubrora was a nothing planet in the mid-rim with no resources that wasn't on an important trade route."

Sascha took over, "Much of that changed when a mining company, Jarman Mining Corporation did a survey of the planet and bought the mining rights to Ubrora on speculation that there were undiscovered metal deposits on the planet. The Ubrorans might not be much for joining galactic society, but they fleeced Jarman Mining for all it was worth. Jarman Corp went bankrupt five years after buying the rights, finding absolutely nothing of value to mine on the planet. What they did find was Thys root, one of the crops grown by farmers on Ubrora. They found that when grinding that root, they created a delicious additive, suitable for adding to many desserts across the galaxy."

Nara shrugged, "The Ubrorans don't have much use for Thys root, they tend to feed it to their herd animals, but the rest of the galaxy disagrees."

"That is often the case as you will find my young apprentice," noted Tiplee, "What is one species' trash is anothers treasure."

"Well the Ubrorans are glad of it," Nara said dryly, "Considering they are getting rich off of it."

"That does tend to make a society appreciative," Aurine commented.

Sascha continued, "Ubrora ships its Thys root out once a month, so there isn't much traffic in and out of the system. I couldn't find records of how many Ubrorans are off planet, but I don't think it's too many. All the records I read from the former employees of Jarman Mining indicated that the Ubrorans see little point in leaving their planet. I tend to agree, it seems like a nice planet."

"We might as well get to the culture of Ubrora, because it's the most interesting part of the planet," said Nara.

Aurine tended to agree, and she had formed her own opinions on Ubrora, but she was interested to see what the more impressionable apprentices thought.

Sascha shifted slightly in his chair, "Ubrora is an agrarian society, with a few cities that are more industrial. You could generalize and say that they aren't at the forefront of technology, but it's not a backwater either."

"That isn't particularly interesting," interjected Nara, clearly interrupting Sascha, "but what is interesting was that in the past their society had a problem with raiders and thieves stealing valuable crops. To counter this, every citizen of Ubrora wears a camera that records their every action."

"Every action?" asked Aurine, playing along as if she didn't know all this already.

"The cameras are only viewed by police forces if they need to," replied Nara, "So if there is a crime reported they can look at the archived footage and find the culprit."

"So it's a surveillance state," Aurine said blutnly.

"That is one way to look at it," Sascha responded, "But it has it's advantages. Crime is basically non-existent on the planet, which is a positive, obviously. Plus, they've managed to integrate the surveillance of their daily lives in different and interesting ways. Many, if not most Ubrorans broadcast their surveillance camera footage to the world, so a farmer in a rural area could sit in his home and watch how a person living in the city lives."

Nara interrupted Sascha again - this time Sascha threw a glare in her direction, which the Togruta failed to notice. "I think it's a great thing, and I found a quote from an Ubroran philosopher to prove my point. Arenio Billitz once said, 'Before you judge my life, my past or my character, walk in my shoes, walk the path I have travelled, live my sorrow, my doubts, my fear, my pain and my laughter. Remember, everyone has a story, when you've lived my life, then you can judge me.'"

"Pithy," noted Tiplee, "But not totally relevant."

Nara doggedly wouldn't drop the argument, "With respect, Master Tiplee, it shows the Ubroran perspective towards the way they live their lives. Because you can actually walk a day in someone else's shoes, you might be able to understand why people who live in the city want certain things or vice versa."

"Sounds useful," admitted Aurine, noting that many disputes occurred because one side fundamentally misunderstood the other, "But not worth giving up your privacy."

"It's a choice though, retorted Nara, "You don't have to broadcast your camera's footage to the world."

"But you do have to wear one," Aurine replied, "So your privacy could be violated at any time."

Nara seemed to be ready to continue the argument, but Sascha placed a hand lightly on her arm, which seemed to calm the Togruta down, "Returning to more important matters," Sascha glanced at both her and Nara to make sure the argument was over. "Most Ubrorans generally like to see how celebrities or famous Ubrorans live, but it has also had a positive effect on the politics of Ubrora. All politicians wear these cameras, so if you want to watch your representative negotiate legislation, you can." Sascha looked over to Nara, "Nara, how about you talk about the Ubroran military."

"'Kay. Around ten years ago, a pirate fleet showed up in Ubroran space and demanded that they hand over their Thys root reserves. Having no real military at all, the Ubrorans had no choice but to concede to their request, though they immediately started to create a military worthy of defending their planet."

The Togruta tapped a button on the holodisplay and it shifted to a picture of an ungainly looking ship with two bubbles connected by a triangular hull. It was in Aurine's opinion, one of the ugliest Starfighters she had ever seen. "This is a _Sarkiss_ class fighter, designed by Ubrorans and produced by Balmorra. It's a two person Starfighter, needing a pilot and a gunner, it's got reasonable speed, terrible agility and no hyperdrive. It's got some decent armament at least."

"In my mind I see it as more of a quasi-blastboat," Sascha interjected, "The ship just isn't agile enough to be classified as a Starfighter."

"How many of these…ships do they have?" Aurine asked.

"Sixty, so five squadrons' worth," Nara answered

Sascha spoke up, "I should note that as part of the deal to manufacture these ships, the Balmorran Defence Corps came to Ubrora to engage in some practice manoeuvers. The Balmorrans came away less than impressed."

Aurine raised her eyebrows, this information had not been in the information package provided by Tiplee, "How did you discover this?"

Sascha grinned, "Do you remember the contact we made on Balmorra on our first mission together?"

"Um…Major…Zark?" she guessed.

"Major Zess," Sascha supplied the correct answer, "I sent him a message, thanking him for his service during our short stay on Balmorra, and asked for his help again. He seemed more than willing to provide commentary on the Ubroran military, though strictly off the record. I have his full message if you want to read it later."

"Impressive work, my Padawan."

"Thank you, Master," Sascha replied politely, "Through him I also found out that the Ubroran army is now being headed by an ex-Balmorran Colonel, so if we need to talk about bringing the army into Republic regulations, we'll know who to talk to."

Tiplee folded her hands in front of her, "Very good work, Padawans, I can see why Padawan Whitestar has such a strong reputation as a researcher."

"Nara helped too," Sascha interjected immediately, "She brought a different perspective which proved very helpful."

"I'm impressed apprentices; perhaps if you keep up this level of work, we'll let you handle some assignments together," said Tiplee. The two Padawans grinned, both pleased by the praise and the potential opportunity to work together.

Aurine spoke, "We'll be coming out of hyperspace in an hour, and I want you to manually calculate our next jump."

Nara looked surprised, "Manually? We have the ship's computer…"

"And what if you are on a ship where the ship's computer is malfunctioning?" asked Aurine, "This is a perfect chance to work on your hyperspace math. Find Master Tiplee and myself when you have calculated our jump. We will double check your math."

The two Padawans slumped into their chairs, realizing that their task would likely take hours of long calculations. "This is some reward," mumbled Sascha, rising from his chair to get to work.

"Math, why'd it have to be math?" grumbled Nara as she walked by her.

As soon as the two young Jedi were out of earshot, Tiplee turned to her, "I fail to see why we are rewarding the Padawan's good work with more menial work."

Aurine smiled, "It's simple, Master Tiplee, Sascha and Nara will eventually get what they want, that is to be able to be paired together and away from us. I'm just going to make them work for it."

"You are a cruel Master," Tiplee observed wryly.

Aurine put her feet up on the table, "Sometimes to be a good Master, you have to be a cruel Master."

Tiplee rolled her eyes, gently shoved past her legs and went back to the cockpit.


	14. Chapter 14: Landing

**Lord Darth Yoda** \- I don't know if Nara and Sascha are friendly in that way, though maybe it is impossible to have platonic female friends when you are a teenager. Who knows. I do think the schoolwork thing is kind of funny too. I can imagine a conversation like 'I know that you saved twelve people and foiled a ring of smugglers but make sure you do your history homework or you'll never make Jedi Knight!'

 **thejoker122 -** Yeah Aurine kind of had to do that - Tyra remains Sascha's most obvious weakness, so it would be poor teaching not to keep testing him on it.

 **Speechbubbleme** \- Totally and utterly non-canon. I really wanted a world where Sascha and Co. would be the first Jedi to ever be on a planet, so I needed a world that is a bit isolated from the rest of the galaxy and unimportant enough that it makes sense that it exists and that nothing important in the Star Wars Universe has occurred there.

A/N - I've got nothing.

Please enjoy the next chapter! As always your favourites and follows are appreciated!

* * *

 **Chapter 14: Landing**

Sascha Whitestar stared out the viewport of the _Emerald Dream_ at the approaching blue-green world of Ubrora. The planet looked more serene then many he had visited, and when he quieted his emotions and searched in the Force, the general emotion he found on the planet was contentedness. That was as he expected, Ubrora was a peaceful world and the Ubrorans themselves were a friendly, if isolationist people. Nara was sitting beside him, trying very hard to conceal her restlessness. Sometimes he was shocked by how easily he perceived the Togruta's emotions and he wondered if Nara could do the same to him. As if on cue, Nara leaned over and whispered, "I can feel you thinking about me again, don't get attached now, little human."

Sascha suppressed a smile, Nara was an impetuous scamp, but she was also a very good friend. Not since Tyra had he someone around his age that he worked so well with. But Nara was different then Tyra. Tyra had seemed always mature beyond her age, and looking back, Sascha had always treated her as if she was older even though they were the same age. Nara was younger than he was and was still sorting out some parts of her personality; Nara was more willing than Tyra ever was to be the junior partner, to let him take the lead and he appreciated it.

"Only one landing beacon, that's quaint," remarked Master Brynar who was piloting the ship, "been a long time since I've been on a world where there is only one designated place to land on the entire planet."

He piped up, "Ubrora doesn't get much traffic, Master, only the cargo haulers that come by once a month to get the new Thys roots."

"I understand why there is only one landing beacon, thank you Sascha," his Master replied.

Nettled, Sascha sat back in his chair, and made himself look busy by rechecking that his appearance was appropriate for a diplomatic function. Ubrora had never had a Jedi on its surface in all of its recorded history, so it was important to look presentable. He was also amused at the idea that he would be recorded in history as one of the first Jedi to visit Ubrora. Idly, he wondered if the Ubrorans would be disappointed by the appearance of the Jedi, for all their reputation, they were just four modestly dressed beings who came as diplomats, not as warriors. Some cultures thought of the Jedi as almost gods, Ubrora hadn't had time to come to its own decision yet, and it was their job to make sure that they Jedi came away well respected.

As the _Emerald Dream_ flew over the capital city of Bontha, Sascha tried to see as much as he could through the viewport. Bontha was sprawling as cities went, lacking the skyscrapers that dominated many industrialized planes, the Ubrorans had instead built their city outward, making it quite big in terms of area, if not population. The preponderance of speeder traffic indicated that the Ubrorans dealt with the cities size by driving everywhere. Not a terrible solution, he decided.

Aurine brought the _Emerald Dream_ in for a perfect landing on indicated hangar bay. The bay itself was rather small as hangar bays went, he estimated that it would only fit fifteen or twenty ships and it was bizarrely…foreign. There was a certain way that hangars were built across the galaxy, as sort of cultural homogenization of the galaxy occurred. Ubrora obviously hadn't gotten the memo. The walls of the hangar came in at awkward angles like it was a work of art rather than a building whose main purpose was to be functional. He noted with some amusement that there were even little murals painted on the sides. Nice. But weird.

As the party of four Jedi prepared to leave the shuttle, Tiplee gave them all a last minute reminder, "Remember, we are here to negotiate a treaty to bring this planet into the Republic so make a good impression. Considering that anyone can be transmitting audio and video feed at any time, we need to be very careful of what we say, unless you are in private. Also, remember that this is a planet not used to aliens like us or Jedi, so be polite but firm when answering questions. If you are unsure about what you should say, say nothing." The three other Jedi murmured acknowledgement, while Aurine and Tiplee were theoretically equals, both being Jedi Knights, Tiplee's diplomatic experience made her in charge by default. His Master didn't seem to mind, deferring easily to the more senior Jedi Knight.

Their greeting party was waiting for them as the Jedi marched down the boarding ramp. Four Ubrorans, Sascha guessed that they were about middle-aged or older, judging by their manner and dress. All four Ubrorans wore elegant, robe-like clothing. The fox-like Ubrorans were all male, their fur ranged from auburn to deep brown in colour, and he was immediately struck by how bright and intelligent their eyes seemed to be.

The Ubroran in the most elaborate robe stepped forward, and spoke in slightly accented basic, "Welcome to Ubrora, I am President Keicho Mollek and with me are Murgo Bokiana, mayor of our capital city, as well as two of my senior advisors, Bernon Seafire, and Dagos Tarwin." The Ubroans bowed politely as they were introduced.

Tiplee took the fore, speaking in a calm, clear tone, probably aware that this moment was being recorded for posterity at the least. It was also quite possibly being broadcast live to millions of homes. "I am Jedi Knight Tiplee, and with me is Jedi Knight Aurine Brynar. Our apprentices are Nara Nalto and Sascha Whitestar respectively. We look forward to productive negotiations and ultimately bringing Ubrora into the Republic."

President Mollek smiled, a small grin that showed off sharp teeth, "I will take you to your home for the duration of the negotiations," he said, walking slowly in the direction of the exit of the hangar, "The house we have for you is usually used by the workers that transport our Thys root shipments and thus will likely be more to your usual standards.

"We appreciate the gesture, President," Tiplee said politely, her voice not betraying the slightest hint of emotion.

The President smiled in a self-deprecating way, "Please, call me Keicho. Too many titles will slow down our negotiations." The President paused before the party reached the exit, "I understand that the correct honorarium for addressing one of your order is 'Master Jedi,' am I correct? Does that apply to your apprentices as well?"

"You may call me Tiplee, or Jedi Tiplee if it is easier, Keicho. The apprentices, you may call by that honorarium if you wish, but calling them Padawan Nalto or Jedi Whitestar would certainly suffice."

The Ubroran seemed satisfied, "I only wish to fit in with the rest of the Republic, Master Jedi."

Sascha smiled to himself, the little back and forth between the two chief negotiators had seemed innocuous, but to him it seemed like two prizefighters in the opening rounds of a fight, just prodding at the opposition. He reached a little into the Force to just get an impression from their four hosts, Keicho was by far the brightest personality, he seemed to be excited and eager to meet the Jedi. The mayor of Bontha, Murgo Bokiana seemed cool and guarded, perhaps unhappy that he wouldn't be the one negotiating the treaty he speculated. The other two Ubrorans were blank slates.

The party of Ubrorans and Jedi were led out into the early afternoon sun. Sascha observed the city, taking in the sights and sounds of a new planet. The main thing that he noticed was that everything was so colourful. Buildings, speeders, clothing, basically everything was coloured in bright, dazzling hues. The drab robes of the Jedi stood out like sore thumbs in comparison. He also noticed that there was a ton of speeder traffic around, it actually reminded him of Courscant. Besides the speeder traffic, there was a fair amount of pedestrian traffic as well. Various Ubrorans hustled around with their bushy tails jutting out of their clothing, often taking a second to look at the group, but moving on with their day after that.

While they were walking along, he quietly dropped back and whispered to Nara, "I think you fit in well here. Purple seems to be a popular colour."

"So does orange, red and green," Nara whispered right back. She nudged him playfully, "I don't see any teal though. They don't like your favourite colour here."

It was true, he noticed. "Maybe when they see my lightsaber, they'll change their mind."

Nara eyed him, "Exactly when do you think you'll be using your lightsaber on this routine diplomatic mission?"

He felt his cheeks reddening, "Uh..."

Nara nudged him, indicating that his Master was glaring at him. Taking the hint, he quickened his pace and caught up to Aurine and settled into his usual position.

Up front, Keicho and his aides were extolling the virtues of Ubrora, promising that their planet would be a fine addition to the Republic. Tiplee was replying in a polite but noncommittal manner, not wanting to make it seem like Ubrora was guaranteed entry into the Republic. Though Sascha couldn't see why Ubrora shouldn't be admitted to the Republic, sure the culture had a few quirks to it, but the world was prosperous and safe, and it could probably integrate into the Republic with little effort.

After a short, ten minute walk, the Jedi were led to their home for the foreseeable future, an unremarkable two storey-home that wouldn't have looked out of place in suburban Corellia. Of course, that same house in suburban Corelia wouldn't have been coloured bright red and orange.

President Mollek opened the door and then handed Tiplee the key, "This will be yours for the duration. May I give you a brief tour?"

Tiplee nodded in acceptance, "Please."

Inside, President Mollek led a brief tour, before returning to the foyer, "I know this house isn't much and you are probably used to more luxurious…"

"This house more than meets our needs, President," said Aurine, speaking for the first time, "We Jedi are simple peacekeepers, and we have few needs."

"Very well then," continued Keicho, upbeat, "we shall expect you at the banquet in your honour tonight at 1800 tonight. Until then, if you wish to leave this house you are of course free to do so, but if you wish to have a guide, please contact me and I will make arrangements."

"I believe the two Padawans were interested in a quick tour of the city," said Tiplee.

Sascha turned to Nara who seemed equally confused by the pronouncement from the Jedi Knight. He didn't remember either he or Nara vocalizing such a desire. He wouldn't have minded seeing the city, but he would have liked to get settled in their new 'home' first.

President Mollek smiled at the two Padawans, "I'm sure we can show you the best of Bontha. As for guides…aren't your kids around today, Murgo?"

The mayor of Bontha looked surprised at being addressed, "I believe they are home, yes."

"Then I can think of no better guides than Lirri and Parv. I'm sure they'll be honored to give our guests a tour of their city."

Sascha nudged his Master in the Force to ask a question that he wanted to ask, but couldn't, given that it was just the 'adults' that were speaking. "Will this tour be broadcasted live?" she asked.

"I assume that they would like to," answered President Mollek, "Considering it will be of interest to most of our citizenry, though of course if you have concerns…"

"That will be fine," answered Tiplee for the two Padawans, who were trying very hard to conceal their displeasure at that answer. Interacting with the Ubrorans was fine, in his opinion, but he wasn't exactly comfortable at being an object of spectacle.

More polite words and promises were exchanged a and a few minutes later the party of Ubrorans left the house.

The second they were gone Nara spoke up, "I don't know when Sascha and I signed up to take a tour of the city"

"Why, Padawan? Do you have an appointment that I'm not aware of?" Tiplee replied icily. "This is a perfect opportunity to interact with a normal member of this city and a chance to find out what the average Ubroran might think about joining the Republic. This is how you can help me in these negotiations, Padawan."

Thought Nara was the one being chastened, Sascha found himself embarrassed as well. Frankly, if Nara hadn't spoken out first, he would have.

"Sorry, Master," replied Nara, her red markings flaring into a brighter red, "It's a good idea, I just don't like the idea of being recorded everywhere I go…frankly if every planet had these cameras, they could be used to track Jedi. We already have enough trouble with people being annoyances to us as it is."

"They were wearing their cameras when we walked out of the _Dream_ ," Tiplee said flatly. "You will have to assume that everyone is broadcasting. Nothing is private on this planet."

"We'll just need to be professional this whole trip," he said, moving to Nara's side to support her, "We can do it."

"I am trusting you, Padawans," Tiplee said, taking the time to look the two of them in the eye, "I am sending you out alone in a city that none of us are familiar with. While this planet is a safe one, do not let your guard down."

Nara stomped her foot impatiently, "I just don't understand what the big deal about negotiating a treaty to enter the Republic is. Aren't there just a bunch of regulations that they have to conform to and we just check that they are up to snuff?"

"There is lots of that, and we will be doing lots of travelling to confirm such things, but there is still much to be negotiated and I would like to be able to make the best deal for Ubrora and the Republic, and for that I need information. And that is where you can be of help, apprentice," said Tiplee.

"What could possibly even be up for negotiation?" Nara asked, exasperated. "Just hand them a treaty and say, if you like it, congratulations you are a part of the Republic. If not…too bad, the Republic already has a ton of planets anyway and Ubrora isn't all that important."

Tiplee looked sternly at her apprentice, "So you are saying that there should just be one treaty that all the planets in the Republic abide by and we should do nothing to accommodate the various cultures that make up the galaxy?"

Put in such stark terms, Nara could hardly disagree, so she muttered a quick apology.

Sascha quickly directed the conversation away from her, "What exactly is up for negotiation, Master Tiplee?"

"Many things, Sascha. I have direction from the diplomatic corps as to what I can and cannot give the Ubrorans, and of course it all needs to be approved by the Senate in the end, but I have a great deal of leeway when it comes to when and how Ubrora is admitted into the Republic."

The Rishati started ticking off points on her fingers, "For example, military size will need to be negotiated and we will have to determine whether their _Sarkiss_ class ships are starfighters or blastboats and how many of them they will be allowed to have. There is also army size, the weapons they are allowed to have, and so on and so forth. Plus we have to negotiate things like how they will receive representation in the Senate, given there already is a Senator for this sector. I'll have to negotiate taxes, whether Thys root could be considered a 'protected crop' for tax purposes. And I'll have to negotiate immigration policies, the Ubrorans will probably want to keep their planet pretty much as is, and they will probably want to attach a camera to everyone, though the _Republic Privacy Act_ prevents such measures. I anticipate that will be the biggest stumbling block for the negotiations."

"Are you trying to get the best deal for the Republic?" Sascha asked, genuinely curious.

"The fairest deal," Tiplee clarified, "the one that will lead to the most productive relationship."

"It's an education for me too, Sascha," commented his Master.

Both Padawans seemed to puzzle out that there was more at stake than just negotiating a simple treaty with a planet that ostensibly wanted to join the Republic and that they might be here a while. Which was fine. This was likely to be a nice, quiet diplomatic mission where he would hopefully learn more about high level negotiating. He'd probably be bored if all of his missions were like this, but as a change of pace…he wasn't going to complain.

He nudged Nara, "Come on Nara, let's go upstairs and pick out our rooms."

Nara smiled slyly and bounded up the stairs enthusiastically.

Aurine called out, "Remember the bigger rooms are for the adults!"

The Togruta peered down on them from the second floor, her lekku dangling over the railing, "That's ageism!"

"No, Padawan, that's being nice to your Master," Tiplee said patiently. "Remember, _we_ get to set your assignments. It would good to be on our good side."

Sascha started walking up the stairs, "Can't argue with that logic."

"I mean I _could_ argue, but I think I'd lose," remarked Nara. The Togruta walked casually down the hallway, stopping outside the doors to two of the smaller rooms, "I think we should take these two."

"Why? There are bigger rooms back down the hall."

Nara leaned over and whispered conspiratorially, "Because these rooms are the two furthest rooms from where our Masters are going to be. And thus, they are the best rooms."

"Are you trying to get me in trouble, Miss Nalto?"

"Trouble? No. But being away from our Masters is the tiniest bit of freedom, don't you want to take it?"

Sascha didn't particularly have strong feelings either way, but it _was_ kind of fun to play along with Nara. "Okay, lets take the two rooms at the end."

The two rooms that Nara picked out were the smallest in the house, but they were much larger than their rooms in the Jedi Temple. Sascha's room was painted a bright blue, while Nara's room was painted in a loud orange colour. He walked around his room, looking around, "They sure like their colour here, don't they?" he muttered to himself.

He wandered over to his bed and tested it out. The bed would have been considered small for the average humanoid, but considering Sascha was under average height, he didn't think that it would be a problem. Indeed, while the bed was a bit soft for his liking, he was sure he'd be able to get used to it.

He walked over to Nara's room and saw that Nara was laying face up on her bed, her hands folded peacefully overtop her stomach, eyes closed. It was arguably the most peaceful looking he had ever seen Nara. He rapped a knuckle against the wall and Nara startled at the noise, bouncing off of her bed in an awkward motion. "Taking a nap?" he teased.

Nara frowned at herself, looking slightly out of sorts, "I meant to just test out the bed…then closed my eyes and I just felt so….I don't know."

"You looked really peaceful."

"Hmm…maybe this room reminds me of something…." Nara trailed off again.

He was a bit weirded out by how oddly Nara was acting, "I see. You got the magical bed I guess."

Nara perked up, "I was always lucky. Come on, lets go back downstairs."

Sascha took one last room around Nara's room, shrugged and then followed Nara out of the roomThey returned to the downstairs area of the house to find Aurine swearing in what Sascha recognized as a little used language from Selvaris, her homeworld. The beige-robed Jedi Knight was huddling over a smallish holoprojector and trying to get it to respond to her vocal commands. The machine was clearly having trouble with her accent.

The three Jedi quietly gathered to observer the irate Jedi in silence, amusement permeating the Force around them. After a minute of careful instructions, Aurine managed to get the holoprojector to show what looked like a news program, a well-coiffed anchor with startlingly blue hair detailed the news of the day, in a very bored sounding monotone.

"Kriff the news, I want personal broadcasts," Aurine said, slamming a fist into the carpeted floor. Usually Sascha would have aided his Master, but he was going to get all the amusement out of this situation that he could.

Finally, the Jedi Knight said in a voice that enunciated every syllable, "Show me the broadcast of Lirri Boikana." The device responded, showing a hologram of their very building. Aurine looked triumphant, "it looks like your tour guides are here, Padawans." She sat on a nearby couch and kicked off her boots, "I'll be watching you, on your tour" she said mirthfully. "I'm beginning to like this planet. Being able to spy on your apprentices is underrated. I think when I get back to Coruscant, I'll recommend these cameras put cameras on all apprentices."

Nara and Sascha looked at each other in absolute horror, which caused both Jedi Knights to burst out in genuine laughter that was only interrupted by the chime ringing.

Aurine gestured to the door grandiosely, "Your guides await, Padawans. Bring all of our travel packs from the _Emerald Dream_ when you get back."

The two Padawans sighed dramatically and trudged towards the door.


	15. Chapter 15: Tours

**Lord Darth Yoda** \- Don't need to apologize! Nara and Sascha will be spending a lot of time together so there will be lots of time to speculate. I think that they are getting a somewhat important task - but to teach an apprentice you have to be willing to let them take chances and (potentially) make mistakes. Besides, the Padawans are oldish - Nara's the same age as Ahsoka when she left the Jedi and Sascha is older than her still!

 **thejoker122** \- The possibility of a diplomatic incident would seem to be present in this next chapter. As for the Republic Privacy Act, its something that I totally made up. It feels like something like that would have existed though.

 **Speechbubbleme** \- Sorry no art - I'm one of the worsts artists on the entire planet too. I think of the Ubrorans as somewhat of a cross between Rocket Raccoon and Starfox. This mission has one major, major, out of left field twist (that we are only a few chapters away from), and then things play out straightforward from there.

 **bodare2 -** Welcome welcome to the world of commenting! Don't be nervous, I actually like being critiqued (and praised...actually any feedback is great). That must have been a huge binge if you read the first two books in a week! Glad you've been enjoying, though you'll have to get used to my 2 updates a week pace now (Wednesday and Sunday). As for the small planet having slightly higher gravity...you are probably right that such a thing wouldn't happen. Fortunately it's nothing more than a minor tidbit about the planet - nothing at all major.

A/N - I've got nothing.

Please enjoy the next chapter! As always your favourites and follows are appreciated!

* * *

 **Chapter 15: Tours**

Sascha and Nara went to the door together to meet their Ubroran guides. The shared a quick glance, and Nara shrugged, "What's the worst that could happen?"

"Major diplomatic incident caused by your big mouth?" he replied innocently.

The Nara of six months ago would have taken that as an insult. The current Nara was humble enough to take the joke, "You know that _does_ sound like something I would do."

"How about if you start saying something stupid, I use the Force to close your mouth?"

"Good idea," said Nara dryly.

When they opened the door, they saw two younger looking Uborans, one male and one female. The female had long blue and purple hair and the male had similar coloured fur and short black hair. The female Ubroran offered the Jedi a clawlike hand, "Hi, I'm Lirri and this is my brother Parv. We have been summoned to be your guides for this afternoon."

Sascha smiled and shook her hand, "I'm Sascha Whitestar."

Nara shook the proffered hand as well, "Nara Nalto."

He noticed a glowing gem in the middle of both of the Ubroran's robe-like clothing, he assumed that was where the camera was located. The fact that it was glowing probably indicated that they were broadcasting live.

Lovely.

"Why don't we get started, Master Jedi," said Parv, his voice a little deeper than his sister's. The Ubrorans spoke in accented basic, but it was easily understandable.

"Just calling us Nara and Sascha is fine, or Padawan Nalto or Whitestar if you feel like being more formal," said Nara.

The Ubrorans led them away from their house and towards what he thought was the city centre. As they went, Sascha noticed that the streets were impeccably clean for a city of Bontha's size, there didn't appear to be any litter. Cleanly people, the Ubrorans.

Parv started with the small talk, "We were a bit surprised to see how…small you Jedi were. We were told by some of the alien workers that the Jedi Knights are the greatest warriors in the galaxy," commented Parv.

"We also thought that being a Jedi meant that you were like…one species," remarked Liri.

Sascha was starting to realize that the Ubrorans didn't exactly pay much attention to the news outside of their planet. Finding information about the Jedi Order and its thousands of years of history couldn't have exactly been hard. Sascha smiled diplomatically, "Jedi come from many different species. I am a human born on Sluis Van, and Nara is a Togruta from Shili."

"Astral! I've never seen a Togruta before," remarked Parv in wonderment. Sascha noticed that Parv was openly staring at Nara who was politely trying not to notice, "Can I touch your…head?"

Nara seemed to suppress a grimace. "What you see on top my head are my montrals. They are hollow horns that give me passive echolocation. Touching a Togruta like myself on my montrals or lekku, that's the three head-tails that I have is…something you should probably avoid. By tradition, only your best friends, your parents and your doctor are allowed to touch them."

"Wow…astral," managed Parv. What Nara was leaving out, was that touching a Togruta on their sensitive sensory appendages was a quick way to get into a fight with one, something you generally wanted to avoid because Togruta were predators with rather sharp teeth…

Lirri finally seemed to notice that her brother was making a scene and gently smacked his paw, "So no touching, Parv."

"Sorry, I'm just curious," said Parv. "But when you see only the same species every day for twenty years, it's a real special event to meet another species. I just want to know all about them."

Nara smiled magnanimously, "That is okay, I'd never met an Ubroran until today. It's a day of firsts for everyone."

"Speaking of firsts," said Lirri, "What are your first impressions of Ubrora?"

"It's very nice," said Sascha diplomatically. "I'm looking forward to seeing more of your planet and getting to learn more about your culture."

"I like how clean and bright everything is," added Nara.

"Well, we only got this one planet, we have to take care of it," said Lirri.

"That's an attitude that I wish was more common across the galaxy," he said, remembering some of the dirty, run down places he'd visited in the last year. Ubrora seemed like a vacation world in comparison.

"Well, let's show you some more of our city," said Parv, picking up the pace slightly.

Lirri and Parv led the Jedi around the city, pointing out various landmarks. The Jedi made appreciative noises at the right moments and asked questions when prompted. Sascha was slightly surprised at how calm and polite Nara was during the whole tour, she seemed almost normal. He shouldn't have been so surprised, after all Nara was apprenticed to Tiplee and Tiplee _was_ a diplomat. He should have expected Nara to have picked up some diplomatic talents from her Master, and he should not have been underestimating his friend.

Sascha came away impressed with the city and their guides. Lirri was clearly the more mature of the two though he was beginning to guess that Parv was actually older. Parv was amiable in his own way, he was the more curious of the pair, but was a bit awkward and prying with his questions. On the other hand Lirri was much more diplomatic and cautious.

Curious as to the feelings of their two guides, he probed into the Force, trying to get a feel for the emotions of the pair. He wasn't surprised in the least to find that Parv was basically over excited. But when he probed Lirri he was so surprised by what he found that he almost fell over.

Lirri was Force-sensitive, clearly untrained, but possessing a power in the Force that was probably equal to his.

Sascha quickly tried to quell his reaction, but even novices at reading human body language and emotions would tell the Ubrorans something was up. "Sorry," he said, "Just…uh…remembered something I have to do when I get back to our ship."

That appeared to placate the two Ubrorans but Nara was not so easily fooled. One, she was a Jedi, and two, she was his friend. He could almost feel her unasked question in the Force, so he subtly directed her to probe Lirri with the Force. When she did, Nara's eyes widened but with no one facing her, the Ubrorans didn't notice.

It was too bad, Sascha realized, that Lirri was far too old to be accepted for Jedi training. Yet, perhaps she could be taught some basic meditation techniques, even if she wasn't going to be trained as a Jedi. Even as his brain raced with the possibilities, he decided that he would inform Master Brynar about Lirri as he certainly didn't have the authority to teach a random civilian anything about using the Force. He actually wasn't sure what the correct procedure was in cases such as this. He would be interested to find out what it was.

The tour of Bontha lasted around two hours before the two Ubrorans pulled into what looked like, and was, a cafe. The brightly coloured (of course) café was mostly empty at this hour, so the group was able to pick out a large booth and rest their legs after a long walk. Sascha quickly checked his chrono, making sure that they had plenty of time between now and a banquet that had been scheduled in their honour tonight. It turned out that they had several hours to go, so they had time to eat and talk to their guides for a while longer.

An obviously starstruck Ubroran server came over and took the order from the two Ubrorans who picked out some local food for the two Jedi to try. Sascha was hungry, but the thought of trying out an entirely alien cuisine seemed like a risky proposition at best. Especially hours before an important banquet. But he could hardly not eat the food either.

"So, are you excited to be going to the banquet tonight?" asked Parv, "Lirri and I wanted to go, but dad couldn't get us tickets. I guess I'll just watch on the 'net."

Lirri leaned in, "I look forward to seeing what both of you wear, I'm sure that fashion analysts out there are just dying to see what the latest trends are in fashion in other parts of the galaxy. By the next morning, everyone will be trying to dress like you Jedi."

"I…think we'll be wearing pretty much these clothes," he said.

"What?" exclaimed Lirri, "You don't have a formal dress or anything? Are you at least going to dye your hair?"

Sascha glanced over to Nara, looking for support. The Togruta was ready to save him "The Jedi Order is fiercely ascetic, as Jedi we are asked to conquer materialism, we essentially lead lives of poverty."

"Materially at least," he added, "No Jedi would ever lack for housing or food. We lead simple lives."

An uncomfortable silence settled over the table as the server brought over four glasses filled with brightly coloured liquid, that Sascha assumed was some sort of fruit juice, as this was an agricultural world after all. Recovering, Lirri indicated that this was Bjerk juice, a favourite of Ubrorans for centuries.

He took a cautious sip. While not entirely unpleasant, the drink was very bitter. He wasn't sure if he could drink an entire glass of it. Nara on the other hand, had clearly taken a liking to it, "This is really good," she exclaimed, "I'm going to order this wherever we go on Ubrora." The two Ubrorans smiled, clearly happy that a Jedi girl from a planet they've never heard of liked their drink.

"So, I have a question that I couldn't find the answer to in my research," he said, "Why is it that Ubrorans speak basic instead of a language developed on planet?"

Parv seemed to brighten slightly, though his fur-lined face couldn't show it physically, "I know the answer to this one. Way, way back, before we were first discovered there were many languages across planet. Everyone spoke their own dialect, and even those were differentiating within towns and villages. In short, when our civilization started centralizing in cities, we needed a language that everyone could agree on, but most people preferred the language from their region. Many fights and disputes took place over language, what would be printed on signs, what language business would be done in, etcetera. When basic was finally introduced to us by some travellers, the solution was obvious. Basic was no one's language, and thus no one could be offended by using it. Some of the old languages still exist, but most of them have faded into obscurity."

"Very interesting," Sascha replied, "Language has always fascinated me, I speak two myself."

"Astral," replied Lirri and Parv, clearly impressed.

"I have a question of my own," said Nara, leaning back in her chair, "These cameras you are both wearing. I know why people thought that these surveillance cameras are a good idea – because raiders were stealing valuable crops and getting away with it, but why choose to put cameras on everyone? Doesn't anyone worry that there is no privacy on Ubrora?"

The two Ubrorans shared a confused look, "Aren't cameras like this standard across the galaxy?" replied Lirri.

"…no," said Nara.

"Why not?" asked Parv. "We have almost no crime, and everyone wears a camera, thus everyone is protected.

"But your privacy is compromised," retorted Nara.

"Was sacrificed to protect the good of the planet," said Lirri smoothly.

Nara frowned, "You don't think that it's odd that your parents could insist that you broadcast exactly what you are doing every day? And that they could watch it afterwards? It seems like you would never truly have freedom."

"Broadcasting our video feeds is something that has only become popular in the last thirty years or so," said Lirri. "But if my parents want to watch me work, or hang out with my friends, they are more that welcome to do so. I have nothing to hide, I'm proud of the way I live."

Parv interjected, "Look at it this way Padawan Nalto, our cameras make it impossible to lie about our lives. No one can say 'I'm rich' when it can be easily found that you are not. The cameras promote honesty."

Sascha and Nara absorbed that last point soberly, and Sascha was starting to see the logic behind wearing a camera at all times and broadcasting. He wasn't sure he'd do it himself, but it had a more advanced logic behind it than he realized.

"So most of the Ubrorans your age always broadcast their video feed?" asked Sascha.

Lirri shrugged her shoulders, "It's basically a part of our culture now. Pretty much anyone who grew up with broadcasting technology just keeps it on all day. Some of the older generation doesn't broadcast, but everyone wears a camera."

He found himself nodding, "As you said there are many benefits to wearing such surveillance devices, Nara and I are just trying to see how this affects your daily lives. Like, right now, how many people are watching this conversation? Is there a way to tell?"

Both Ubrorans pushed a little button on their wrist devices, "I've got 205 000," said Parv.

"Ha! I've got 261 000," said Lirri triumphantly.

Both Jedi shared a look and shifted uncomfortably in their seats, they were both aware that they were being watched, at the very least by their Masters, but were more than a little stunned to discover they were being watched by almost a half a million people. That wasn't just a small audience, that was a reasonable percentage of Ubrora's entire population.

"I'm sure if either of you two wanted to wear a camera, you could probably get half a million viewers, easy!" Parv looked excited, "Think of the money you could get from sponsorships, companies will be falling over themselves to advertise on your broadcast."

Nara seemed bemused by the idea, "As a Jedi I have no use for monetary compensation, but if the populace find it educational, I may broadcast occasionally."

"I'm sure now that you've said that, there will be free cameras from every camera company delivered to your home," replied Lirri with a laugh.

Parv nodded, "You four Jedi are like the biggest celebrities we've ever had. Even on Ubrora we've heard tales of the Jedi, how they are the guardians of peace and justice in the Republic. Your parents must be proud of you."

Nara's cheerful expression evaporated in a single instant, and her face went totally blank. The topic of parents didn't exactly come up a lot around the Jedi Temple, and Sascha hadn't spent any significant time thinking about his parents in...years. But this was a potentially awkward question to answer. He decided that he would try to artfully dodge the question, "Neither Nara or I know our parents," he said carefully.

"I'm so sorry, may I ask what happened to them?" asked Parv.

Sascha glanced over at Nara to see if she wanted to answer, but her expression was still stony...so he figured it was up to him to answer, "Our parents are alive…as far as we know…as a part of our Jedi training; we are taken from our parents when we are very young."

Both Ubrorans opened their eyes wide in shock, but neither of them knew what to say. The Ubrorans were learning the truth, that every Jedi was an orphan at heart. Every Jedi was once a child their parents decided that they could live without.

Lirri recovered first, "That's…monstrous…"

"It is necessary," he said, "A Jedi must be dispassionate, free of attachments, including attachment to their parents."

Despite his answer , the two aliens seemed to hold themselves a little further back from the Jedi; clearly, they had just shattered whatever illusions they had developed about the Jedi Order.

"Don't feel bad for us," he said, "Every Jedi in the Order is my brother or sister and I grew up in one of the most famous buildings in the galaxy. Maybe it wasn't exactly traditional, but it wasn't a bad childhood either."

Lirri made an effort to seem more cheerful, but it was clearly forced, "So you must have many brothers and sisters, Master Jedi. Family reunions must take up a whole planet."

Nara finally seemed to snap out of her stupor. "I'm not sure that ten thousand Jedi could take up anything more than a small asteroid," she said.

Lirri frowned, "Ten thousand? That's all the Jedi there are? How many planets are there in the Republic? More than ten thousand right?"

"Um…yes there are more planets in the Republic then there are Jedi…" Sascha said before being interrupted by Parv.

"Then how do you keep the peace? You are so few…why are there not more Jedi?"

"I'm sure finding parents to give up their children is harder than it seems," Lirri replied acidly.

The reputation of the Jedi was definitely taking a beating in this conversation, he realized. Fortunately, the Force provided a small miracle of having the food arrive at that moment, sparing Sascha and Nara from trying to find an adequate explanation.

The array of dishes sprawled over the table and the Jedi tried each one in turn. While continuing the trend from the Bjerk juice, the food tended to have a bitter taste, but some of the other dishes Sascha found to be fairly good. Nara found the meats most appetizing of course, being a predator and all, but she even politely ate the assorted fruits and vegetables. Which she would no doubt complain about later.

"So, how old are you two? We are pretty bad at determining ages of alien species," asked Lirri.

Sascha swallowed a piece of fruit before answering, "I'm seventeen, and Nara is sixteen."

"That is…very young," Parv observed.

Nara shrugged, "We are just apprentices, we won't be fully fledged Jedi Knights until our early twenties."

The Ubrorans shared a look, "That _still_ seems young."

"Speaking of ages," interjected Sascha, "How old are you two?"

"I'm twenty-three, and Parv is twenty-four, though he acts like he is fourteen," said Lirri.

"Hey! I act like I'm at least eighteen," replied Parv in good spirits.

The group chewed on the food for another moment and idly, Sascha found himself wondering how many viewers they were losing in this downtime. "So, I'm confused," said Parv, "If there are just ten thousand Jedi in the galaxy, why don't you just train more? I'm sorry for being blunt but there doesn't seem to be anything particularly special about either of you two. Does the training just weed out those who can't take it or what?"

Sascha decided he'd field this question, "Have you ever heard of the Force?"

"The Force? Is that some band's name? The name of a cult?" questioned Parv, "And what does it have to do with my question?"

"Everything," said Nara with a smile, "The Force is an invisible energy field that is created by every living thing in the galaxy. It surrounds us at all times and binds the galaxy together. Jedi draw power from the Force."

Both Ubroans blinked, clearly unsure if the response from the Togruta was supposed to be taken seriously, or was just a joke. "So, the Force is like smaller than…cells or molecules?" asked Lirri.

"Um…it's better to think of the Force as something ubiquitous and…magical than something you can physically grab," replied Nara.

Lirri seemed deeply skeptical of this idea, "Uh…huh, so this 'magical' energy field gives Jedi powers…why can't anyone learn to manipulate this 'Force?'"

Nara stammered again, "Well you have to be what we call Force-sensitive, generally these beings have much higher than average midi-chlorians in their blood."

Lirri squinted at Nara, "Midi-chlorians? Never heard of them."

That's funny because you have enough of them to be a Jedi, Sascha thought, amused.

"Well they are real, and it's what gives a Jedi the ability to manipulate the Force," replied Nara haughtily.

"So what can you do with this 'Force?'" inquired Parv.

Nara looked to him questioningly and he shrugged in response, "It's not like it's a big secret that we could hide forever." He got comfortable in his seat, "Nara and I will give you a little demonstration." Though the two Jedi hadn't shared a single word, Nara caught on pretty quickly as to what he wanted to do. The two Jedi each grabbed their glasses from the table with the Force, and moved them together, making a soft clinking sound before holding them in place with their telekinetic ability.

Sascha spared a second to look at the reaction from the Ubrorans. Parv stared ahead, mouth agog, looking for words to say, but finding none. Lirri was blinking rapidly and she tilted her head from side to side to see if she had been deceived by a slight of hand and not by a power she had never seen or heard of before today. After maybe twenty seconds of holding the glasses in place, the Jedi lowered them back down to the table, which seemed to snap their hosts back to reality.

"Astral…that was just…astral," said Parv. "I've never seen anything like that…ever."

"That was a pretty simple display," Sascha said, "But as a demonstration of the power of the Force, it will suffice."

Parv bounced excited on his chair, "Simple? You floated those glasses with your mind! What else can you do? Can you lift me?"

"As Jedi, we try not to use the Force for such trivial matters," Sascha said diplomatically.

"Can you make an exception for me?"

Sascha smirked, "Sorry, Parv. We treat our powers with respect."

"Well, I think we've occupied enough of your time, Master Jedi," said Lirri. "You two should probably get back to your temporary home and get ready for the banquet."

"That sounds like a good idea," said Nara.

The Jedi rose from the table and followed the Ubrorans out of the café. Sascha and Nara frowned, each noticing the same thing.

"You didn't pay for our meal," he commented, not wanting to sound accusing.

Lirri and Parv laughed, "Master Jedi, almost half a million people watched us eating and enjoying our meal at that café. For that much free advertising, they should be paying _us_."

"I'm sorry, I didn't understand that was something that could happen," Sascha apologized.

Lirri shrugged, "First time for me too. I usually don't have hundreds of thousands of people watching my personal broadcast."

The two Ubrorans chatted amiably the rest of the way back to the hanger bay, where they stopped and bid the Jedi farewell.

Sascha and Nara boarded the ship pick up their and their Master's travel bags before heading back to their home. "This is an odd planet," he commented to Nara quietly.

"But a nice one," responded Nara, "I think that we will enjoy our stay."

"I think so too."


	16. Chapter 16: Banquet

**Lord Darth Yoda** \- I mean, midiclorians are what they are. I try to not make them a big deal, but they are cannon (as much as people don't like it). Yeah interesting point re: celebrity. I mean if some offworlder described 'the greatest warriors in the galaxy,' you'd probably assume they'd be big, brutish warriors. Nope, just average people with special abilities and rigorous training.

 **Speechbubbleme** \- I mean, I just didn't throw in that detail to summarily ignore it (though it goes ignored in this chapter). Several of the Ubroran characters already introduced are going to be important parts of our cast during this book.

 **Bodare2** \- I have to admit, I've always been fascinated by Privacy and surveillance. I think anyone who reads Foucault's _Discipline and Punish_ like I have will have an appreciation for how people act when they are being observed. I actually think of the cameras that the Ubrorans wear as something like the police body cameras that are coming into vogue here in North America.

A/N - I've got nothing.

Please enjoy the next chapter! As always your favourites and follows are appreciated!

* * *

 **Chapter 16: Banquet**

Aurine Brynar had been on many worlds during her career as a Jedi. Yet rarely had she found a planet that agreed with her as much as Ubrora did. The mission was starting to feel like a bit of a vacation. Their mission was low-key and didn't rely heavily on her, though she would be supporting Tiplee in the upcoming negotiations, which she was sure would be interesting, but probably wouldn't take a huge effort from her. The house they were staying in was nice and tidy and she could even keep an eye on her apprentice through the holoprojector. Idly, she wondered what it would take to get Sascha to wear a camera the entire time he was on planet. He'd probably do it without a fuss, she decided, that's how compliant he was. Now, getting him to broadcast live so she could keep tabs on him was probably another matter. He'd still probably do it, but she didn't see the need, Sascha had proven himself since his recovery that he could be trusted to be on his own, and to make good, if not great decisions. He'd even handled himself well during the brief tour that he'd been on. Faith in her apprentice - she had plenty of that.

In preparation for the banquet, Aurine and Sascha had put on their more stylish robes, hers a brilliant emerald green, Sascha's a more understated gray with teal motifs subtly woven in. It heartened her to see how much Sascha liked the robe she bought…well she traded a favour for. She hadn't been sure when she got it that he would like it, as he wasn't the most fashion conscious person she had ever met, but it was easy for her to see that it was one of his most treasured possessions. It even had the added benefit of looking good on him.

The three female Jedi were getting ready for the banquet in one of the unused bedrooms, putting the final touches on their outfits. But it was not like it was some sort of fashion show or anything, it was just making sure that everyone looked reasonably presentable for such a formal occasion. "Why didn't I get a nice robe like Sascha's for my sixteenth birthday?" asked Nara, half-seriously as she adjusted her belt. "It's not fair that Sascha gets a nice robe and I don't."

"A Jedi should not want material possessions," Tiplee replied, looking into a mirror to make sure she was presentable.

Nara was obviously not satisfied with that answer, "Oh, I _want_ a lot of things, Master. I'd like my own personal Starfighter, some nice jewellery, and a more comfortable pillow for my bed. I'll do without them because that is the Jedi way, but you can't make me not want pretty clothes."

"You're such a girl Nara," said Sascha, sneaking up on the Togruta from behind. The Togruta pivoted immediately and snapped a kick that stopped just short of Sascha's face. To Aurine's amazement, Sascha didn't even flinch. Her apprentice really did have an absurd amount of faith in his friend.

Nara slowly withdrew her leg, and then stood in front of Sascha with her arms defiantly across her chest, "Yes, I like pretty things. Does that make me a girl?"

Sascha grinned, "Pretty much." Aurine and Tiplee took a step back, amused. Sascha was obviously teasing Nara, but neither Jedi Knight thought that she would just take it lying down. It wasn't in her DNA.

"How about being able to beat you to a pulp? Does that make me a girl?" Nara asked innocently.

Sascha reddened, "Uh…"

Nara laughed loudly, "It is so easy to make you blush, its not even fun anymore." The Togruta gave him a friendly tap on his shoulder, "You've got lots of cool possessions Sascha. Some of us aren't so lucky. Not every Jedi has a state of the art ship given to them by their homeplanet. Some of us don't have your material wealth."

Sascha winced, "I never asked for any of those things…and the ship's not really mine…it's just leased to me…for my lifetime…"

Nara rolled her eyes, "So you are the owner."

"Pretty much," interrupted Aurine, "He just likes to deny it. He doesn't like being a special snowflake."

"Master! You are supposed to take my side."

"A Jedi always should speak the truth," she replied, a smile adorning her face.

Sascha sighed dramatically, "Let's just get this banquet over with."

The four Jedi made sure that they were all presentable for a formal audience, making sure that no small animal had attached themselves to the bottom of their robe as had once happened to her before an important meeting with a local dignitary on Bimmisaari. _That_ was a moment she would soon like to forget.

As they exited their house, they found a luxury speeder already waiting for them. "I suppose that is our ride," Aurine muttered briefly. Indeed it was. The four Jedi clambered into the vehicle without complaint, with the two Padawans conspicuously choosing to sit next to each other. While both Sascha and Nara didn't flirt with each other as much as they had, their friend ship was, in Aurine's opinion, far too playful. She had broached the topic with Tiplee before, but the Rishati seemed firmly set in her belief that their friendship was fine as it was, and they'd grow out of it as they grew older.

A few minutes later, their driver stopped the speeder and the Jedi clambered out, each evaluating their surroundings like they had been trained to do since they were younglings. Their destination was an elaborately designed building, its exterior was splashed with a collage of colours. Blues and purples clashed with reds and greens, but the overall effect on the building was quite pleasant. Aurine was starting to realize that Ubrorans really liked colour, from dyeing their hair to painting their buildings. It wasn't a bad trend, she would take the colourful world of Ubrora over some of the more dour worlds she had visited.

Flanked by their apprentices, she and Tiplee entered the building, which was already abuzz with conversation. The main hall was spacious and decorated with intricate marble statues commemorating the greats of Ubrora's past and present. Along the side of the massive hall, a long table was laid out with some small refreshments already on it and the promise of more food to come. There were perhaps a little over a hundred Ubrorans in the hall, and from what she had ascertained from watching some news broadcasts was populated with the most important people on planet. Politicians, business magnates, and celebrities were amongst the attendees. Those who were not in attendance were likely watching at home.

While their arrival had been noticed by every Ubroran, the honor of greeting them was left to President Mollek. The elder statesman, who was now dressed in a different robe than when he had met with them earlier today, gracefully strode over to them and held out his hands in a welcoming gesture, "Master Jedi, you've arrived precisely on time, though I expected nothing less."

"Thank you, President Mollek," Tiplee replied, bowing politely. "We are honoured that you would go to such lengths to welcome our arrival on planet, so the least we could do is show up on time."

That produced a rough chuckle from the President of Ubrora as he made eye contact with each member of the delegation like a good politician, "Holding a banquet like this was necessary, Master Jedi. We Ubrorans delight in shared occasions like this one, we enjoy showing off our food, our music, and our culture. We may be an introverted people, but we are prideful about what makes Ubrora, Ubrora." A little twinkle appeared in Mollek's eye, "Though this banquet is more special than most. It may be the last I attend as the head of an unaligned planet."

"I hope that it is, President Mollek," responded Tiplee in a pleasant but noncommittal tone.

The President of Ubrora smiled in an amiable manner, "Ah, but enough diplomatic chatter, there are so many people here that are eager to meet a real Jedi Knight in the flesh and I don't want to take this opportunity away from them." Taking the cue from the Ubroran, the Jedi split into their usual Master-Padawan pairs, which meant having Sascha by her side. While there were about a million other things that she'd rather be doing, Aurine went around the room, shook hands with those who wanted to shake hands, and engaged in polite but frankly meaningless conversations with others. Sascha politely stood by her side with his hands folded behind his back, only speaking when spoken to, like a good Padawan should.

More than anything, the Ubrorans that she met wanted another display of Force power like Sascha and Nara had done for Lirri and Parv earlier today. The expectation seemed to be that if an apprentice could have lifted something as small as a glass with ease, the Master would have much more advanced tricks to display. She politely declined all the requests, the Force was not something you used to impress people at parties. The Ubrorans she talked to were understanding, but obviously disappointed.

She had never been on a planet like this that was so unaware of the Jedi, the cause she had dedicated her life to. On any world with access to the Holonet, you could find thousands of videos with Jedi fighting, using the Force and even dying. These videos were so ubiquitous that it was most people barely took notice of them. A Jedi performed another superhuman task? Yawn. The average citizen was more interested in the score of last night's shockball game. The Jedi simply _were_. They had been around for thousands of years and would be for thousands to come. They were an institution, and in general, the average person didn't pay attention to institutions.

After Aurine seemed to have shaken the hand of every Ubroran in the high ceilinged hall, President Mollek stepped to a small platform, and held up a hand. Obligingly, the conversations that had swelled around the hall died down within seconds. Truly, Ubrorans seemed to have a very organized and polite society. "Friends, colleagues, fellow Ubrorans, we stand today on the precipice of doing something truly unique in our history. For hundreds of years, we have been content to ignore the fact that we are not alone in this galaxy. Sure, we sell our crops to other worlds and from that wealth, we have bought technology that we could not have produced on our own, but our world remains closed off from the galaxy otherwise. We have talked about joining the Republic for years now, but we have talked about it leisurely, like it was not really all that big a deal."

The bright green eyes of the President blinked as he shuffled his notes, "What I have learned today, as I'm sure many of you have, is that we are ignorant about the galaxy at large. When we appealed through our contacts for a diplomat to negotiate our treaty to join the Republic, many suggested that we contact the Jedi. While we had heard of the great guardians of peace in the Republic, we had no idea what the Jedi were, what they represented, and what they could do. Yet, generously they sent four of their Order here, to negotiate with us. That generosity cannot be ignored." Aurine and Tiplee politely inclined their heads to the President, acknowledging the implicit compliment.

Mollek continued, speaking in a strong, clear voice, "But it shames me to see that we had no true understanding of what the Jedi were, and what they can do. I do not like to think of myself or my fellow Ubrorans as stupid or ignorant, but I believe that we have to accept that we are, in the grand scheme of the galaxy, the child that refused to study in school, thinking that he knew all that was necessary to succeed in life. We may have shambled along in our own way, but now, I believe it is the time to open ourselves up to the wider galaxy, and the best way to do that is to join the grand coalition of planets that calls itself the Galactic Republic."

After the polite, appreciative applause died down, the blue and black haired President continued, "But, on a slightly more pleasant note we must also accept that we are strangers to our new guests. Therefore, one of the reasons for this banquet is that so we can introduce ourselves. Ubrora is a planet that is bountiful, and beautiful, but what we love more than anything is sharing. And it is in this spirit that we will serve a great banquet later tonight so that our guests can experience all that makes Ubrora great, and we hope, a worthy addition to your Republic. In return I would like to make a request, that I'm sure is echoed by many of my fellow Ubrorans." He paused significantly to look over at the Jedi, "The Jedi Knights are called this for a reason, by reputation they are peacekeepers, but that also means that they are warriors. We Ubrorans are not a warlike people, not in the slightest, but we do appreciate displays martial prowess."

Tiplee stepped forward, and easily projected her voice throughout the hall, despite the lack of any voice amplification, "I believe I know where you are going with this, President Mollek and we can comply with your request. Padawans, if you'd like to give our hosts a display of our martial ability…"

"Of course, Masters," they replied in unison, projecting their voices easily across the room.

Striding to the middle of the hall, the two Padawans indicated that the crowd should give them some room, and obediently the Ubrorans as a collective moved to the sides of the room. As the crowd shuffled around, Aurine found herself standing beside President Mollek, with Tiplee flanking him off his other shoulder. She also found herself suppressing a smile. If the Ubrorans had been impressed by some simple telekinesis, they were going to be blown away by lightsabers and watching Jedi in mock combat. She just hoped that Nara and Sascha would give them a good show.

Standing across from each other, both Padawans withdrew their lightsabers and struck a dramatic pose, legs spread shoulder width apart, arms above their heads, holding their unlit lightsaber hilt in two hands. Together, they lit their blades, the _snap-hiss_ echoing around the chamber. Nara's blade was a pale blue; Sascha's a rare teal hue. Gasps emanated from the crowd, maybe they had heard rumors of the Jedi's lightsaber or laser swords, and possibly had even seen pictures of one. No Ubroran had seen one in person, until this very moment.

They held that position, then, using a small amount of the Force, Sascha spoke out over the din, "The lightsaber is the weapon of the Jedi. Far more than a simple weapon, it is a tool, a symbol. Anyone can use a blaster. Not anyone can use a lightsaber."

Nara spoke next, "A lightsaber allows for both attack and defence. It can protect the innocent, as well as strike at an enemy. A lightsaber's plasma blade can cut through almost every material in the galaxy. This is symbolic as well as being useful. This means that there is no hiding from the justice of the Jedi."

Having entranced their audience with their words and their glowing blades, the Padawans shook out of their previous stance and into a more natural fighting posture, each circling the other warily. The two saluted each other with their blades before going coming together. The young Padawans moved slowly through a typical cadence, each having their turn on the attack. They continued that way for about half a minute at a glacially slow pace for them, their lightsabers sparking and glowing where they made contact. After their first cadence was finished, they entered another highly stylized cadence, again moving at a leisurely pace. The crowd, which had been enthralled earlier, was beginning to grumble. This was all that the famed warriors of the Republic could do? It hardly seemed impressive.

Finishing the second cadence, Sascha and Nara took the crowd's displeasure as their cue to up the tempo. They discarded the traditional cadences and sparred free-form, first attacking and defending in simple patterns. Quickly, they moved on to using more flair in their maneouvers, their personalities and typical styles starting to show – Nara the athletic attacker, and Sascha the dogged defender. However, their slower than usual pace allowed the audience to easily keep up with the action. Aurine suppressed a smile, she didn't know how that the Padawans had decided to start slowly without exchanging words, but they had chosen wisely. Their exhibition of lightsaber combat was drawing their viewers in and making them wonder if the Jedi could go faster, or make their attacks more skillful. Which, of course they could, neither Padawan was really exerting themselves, they probably could have sparred at this pace for hours.

The tempo upped again. The Padawans started attacking in more intricate patterns and started defending the blades far closer to their bodies. Their lightsabers were a blur of light, smacking against each other with power. Still, Sascha and Nara were still only going at about eighty percent of their normal speed, she estimated, and instead of trying to 'win' this mock duel, they were mainly concerned with showing off their skill. She approved of that, as it would have been easy to fall into the usual pattern of sparring, but instead the young Jedi were showing how graceful a Jedi could look in combat.

"I assume that because these are just apprentices, they have special weapons so that cannot harm each other in this spirited display," President Mollek spoke over the sounds of the ongoing sparring match.

"No, President Mollek, their lightsabers are at full power," replied Tiplee, unconcerned.

"But isn't there a chance that they could hurt each other?"

Tiplee shrugged, "Not really, no. Sascha and Nara are well acquainted with each other, they know what the other can do. At this point in their training they are more than capable of not harming the other."

The Ubroran returned his attention to the fray, apparently convinced by the explanation. Still, he seemed worried about the two teenagers that were moving as fast as the eye could see, each wielding a very deadly weapon. When put in those terms, Aurine Brynar thought that he might have had a point.

Even she was slightly disconcerted by her apprentice's choice to use a fully powered lightsaber. There were some Masters who believed that once a Jedi became a Padawan that they should never again set their lightsaber to its lower setting. These Jedi believed that sparring with 'live' weapons taught control. Aurine was in the other camp, which figured that a lightsaber had a low power setting so that it could be used in that way. Being able to spar at full speed without worrying about harming your partner always made more sense to her.

It was also hard not to notice the depth of the bond that existed between Nara and Sascha. While they maintained a serious expression during their impromptu sparring match, their delight pulsed through the Force, clearly they were both enjoying themselves. While on one hand, she was happy for both of them, as right now it was a beneficial friendship, Sascha being the solid friend Nara could rely on, Nara being the more impetuous and skilled Jedi that counteracted Sascha's relative lack of ability. Yet, she remembered what happened the last time Sascha had a very close female friend, and she knew that history had a way of repeating itself.

At what appeared to be Nara's insistence, the Jedi upped the tempo one last time, moving at a pace that was maybe ninety percent of their usual speed. The crowd gasped audibly as Nara cut towards Sascha's head, and he ducked out of the way of her blade at what seemed like the absolute last moment. Sascha repeated the favour a moment later with a slash that would have detached Nara's left wrist from her arm, which the Togruta avoided by the barest of margins. Clearly unconcerned, Tiplee was staring at her nails, brushing some unseen dust off her hand as her apprentice took the attention of the crowd. Aurine was more tense than her compatriot, to say the least.

The Padawans clashed again, binding their lightsabers together. Sascha who was physically stronger than Nara by the thinnest of margins, pressed his advantage, forcing the teal and blue interlocked blades, slowly towards the purple-skinned Togruta. Skilfully, Nara broke the bind, twirling her blade away from where Aurine normally assumed it would go after breaking the bind, and that deceit opened up an opening in Sascha's defences. Nara's blade moved towards the opening that she had created, and then away from it, moving back into a central defensive position.

Sascha seemed to nod almost imperceptibly, admitting that he had been beaten. Aurine admired that Nara had achieved her victory in a way that showed her superior technique but no one outside of a master swordsman would have seen. That was the mark of a Jedi, and perhaps the mark of a maturing young Padawan. Tiplee gave her a look, as if to say, 'See how this friendship is helping them,' before returning her attention back to the sparring contest.

The two Padawans completed a few more passes at each other, before they disengaged their lightsabers and bowed formally to each other. A moment of silence seemed to engulf the crowd, before it broke out into polite applause.

President Mollek once again stepped forward, "Fantastic, Master Jedi, truly an amazing display. I shall have to watch it again tonight once someone slows down the recording to a more manageable speed for these old eyes." The crowd and even Sascha and Nara laughed politely to the joke. "If you would like to make a request of anyone here, now would be the time," said President Mollek.

Nara spoke up almost immediately, "This is a banquet right? Because we just worked up a big appetite, and Jedi or not, we still need to eat."

"This is a request I can get behind," the President said behind a fatherly smile.


	17. Chapter 17: Negotiations

**Lord Darth Yoda** \- I mean, as always, you nailed it. You (hopefully) still aren't going to see the twist coming, but you've got a thematic sense of what is coming down the pipeline.

 **Bodare2** \- Yeah it's nice and peaceful (for now!). Sascha has spent a lot of time getting shot at and being bludgeoned in the first too books, its time to write a somewhat more peaceful story (for now...)

A/N - For those of you that don't know, Tiplee is a canon character (she appears in a couple of episodes of season 6 of The Clone Wars.) For those of you looking for a reference about how she looks - just google Tiplee and you'll find some pictures (I'd post a link, but they won't let me...grrr...)

Anyways. Shorter chapter tonight, but they all can't be 4,000 word thrillers (I mean, they _could_ , I guess.)

Please enjoy the next chapter!

* * *

 **Chapter 17: Negotiations  
**

If the Ubrorans had been trying to score points with the Jedi by offering them use of this house, Sascha Whitestar was more than happy to let them. Usually on his first night on a new world he slept restlessly, trying to get used to a new bed, new sounds and new stresses. He hadn't had that problem this time. The bed in his room had been so comfortable that it had been hard to drag himself out of it this morning. It sure beat his barely padded bedroll back in the Jedi Temple.

That had been one thing. Even better was the food that had been delivered to their doorstep in the morning for breakfast. Fresh fruits and grains had been delivered in a container that sealed their freshness, along with jugs of fruit juice that were kept at the perfect serving temperature until they were poured. It seemed that the Ubrorans had paid attention to what each had eaten at the banquet last night and created a profile for each of them, so that the food that they delivered this morning was configured to their particular palette. While he shouldn't have been influenced by any of this, after all he was supposed to be above such material desires, he found himself hoping that the negotiations would drag on for a couple weeks so that he could be doted on for a while longer. It was nice to be appreciated for once, instead of being shot at.

After their breakfast, the four Jedi came together and meditated, taking advantage of the warm sunlight filtering through the large bay window of their temporary home. This was such a nice world; he thought as he let his mind drift in meditation. He could detect very few instances of dark emotions, there was little fear, anger or malice on Ubrora. This was a place where a Jedi could be a peace, not having to keep his guard up every second, fearful that there could be someone lurking around the corner with evil intentions. It was almost a vacation.

Compounding the feeling that this was a vacation was being able to spend time with Nara. Though he was still ticked off that he had 'lost' to her in that simulated sparring session last night, Nara had been uncharacteristically gracious afterward. Usually Nara would try to rub her victories in his face – teasingly of course, but last night after they had gotten home, she had demonstrated to him the correct defence to technique that she had used to beat him last night.

While he knew that Aurine hadn't warmed up completely to their friendship, and it was because Nara was female and relatively attractive, he didn't really care. For one, while he thought Nara was reasonably cute he hadn't ever found himself actually attracted to her. He hoped he never would find her attractive, to be honest. He enjoyed their friendship, their banter and the fact that their friendship was just easy. Sometimes he thought it would have been easier if Nara was a guy. Or ugly. Either or.

After their meditation, Tiplee gathered the other Jedi together at the kitchen table, "I hope everyone enjoyed that meal that was delivered for us today, for it will be the last."

"Last?" he blurted, "Why! This was the best breakfast I've had outside of Master Alicka's blumfruit muffins." Master Alicka's blumfruit muffins were something of a legend around the Temple. Whenever the Jedi Master made her muffins, Jedi who enjoyed her creations lined up outside the kitchens to be the first to get them, fresh from the ovens. In line, it was common to find Jedi Masters lined up behind seven year old Initiates. The muffins were for all to be enjoyed, regardless of age and experience. Sascha didn't know if there was such a thing as 'Force Cooking' but if there was, Master Alicka was the undisputed master of the technique.

The Rishati evaluated him coolly, "We are supposed to be impartial negotiators, Padawan Whitestar, and we cannot be impartial if we continue to accept these gifts."

He tried to keep the disappointment out of his face but knew that his emotions permeated the Force as well. He understood _why_ Tiplee was taking these actions, he just didn't want to bow to her logic.

His Master spoke up, "We'll send you and Nara to the market after today's negotiation to buy foodstuffs."

"How will we pay for anything? I'm not sure Republic credits will be accepted."

The two Jedi Knights shared a conspiratorial glance, "We've obtained some Ubroran currency, and in exchange, you two Padawans will wear a camera and broadcast for at least ten hours over the next week. I assured the advertisers that you'd give them a good show."

The two Padawans slumped in their seats and Sascha sighed deeply, "Nara, I've decided that we Padawans need a union so we don't get taken advantage of like this, do you want to join?"

Nara put a delicate purple finger on her chin, "Do I get to be the president?"

He sighed again, "Alright forget the whole thing. Union abolished."

"Are you done joking around, Padawans?" asked Tiplee.

Sascha straightened, rebuked, "Yes, Master Tiplee."

Tiplee smirked, showing that she was not offended by his frivolity, "Do you have a problem going to market and buying foodstuffs for us? One of us will accompany you two if you wish. However we thought that you would enjoy the freedom."

Nara answered, "I think Sascha and I were more concerned about wearing cameras for ten hours. Personally, I'm uneasy with the idea of being on display."

"I think its good training," said Tiplee. "When we are on other worlds we are never sure when we are being filmed for nefarious purposes or otherwise. Here we will at least always know that we are being watched."

"I think that makes sense, Master Tiplee," Sascha said. "But I think we are under the impression that you'd like us to put on a 'show' for the Ubrorans. I don't know what you want us to do? We could spar with each other I guess. But...the rest of what we do here will be tied to the negotiations and I don't think you'll want that recorded."

"I'm leaving you two to be creative with it," said Tiplee. The Rishati held up a hand, "I'm not expecting either of you to start broadcasting right away, but please do think of ideas for educational and entertaining programming."

The two Padawans shared a look and shrugged, "We'll talk about it when we have time," said Nara.

The Rishati nodded, "Very well. The status of the negotiations is this; even before we made planetfall, I sent off a proposed treaty to the Ubroran President, and judging by his speech last, I think it's gone over pretty well. Yet, because I just sent off something of a bland treaty, I'd expect that there will be lots of details to go over and lots of little points to haggle out. So Padawans, I want you to be _silent_ in the meeting. If you feel that you have to make a comment, type it on your datapads and send it to Aurine. She will be filtering the information to me."

"It's just as exciting as it sounds," Aurine said dryly.

Tiplee gave her counterpart an arch look, "Do I have to rebuke you as well?"

Chastened, Aurine looked down and adjusted her belt, but said nothing.

Amused at her aura of authority, Tiplee looked bemused, "Am I really that scary?"

"I believe we are just trying to give you the appropriate amount of respect," said Nara.

Tiplee smiled and nodded, "Diplomatic answer, my apprentice. Moving on to more important matters, today, I expect we will receive a list of complaints and issues with the treaty that we sent them. Hopefully there won't be too many so we can move into the second stage of this mission, which is to confirm that everything is up to Republic standards."

Aurine spoke next, "The only other thing that has to be mentioned is that we told the Ubrorans that they cannot record or broadcast any part of these negotiations. I suspect that they were very unhappy about that, and I expect to hear about it from them. As for how this relates to you – I want you two to make sure that no one is sneaking in a look at our negotiations."

Sascha felt himself frowning, "And how are we supposed to detect this? The Ubrorans aren't at the forefront of technology, but their recording devices and cameras are pretty modern looking – that means they are quite small...we won't be able to see them"

"It's best if you used the Force to try to detect anyone trying to be subversive. I think that sort of emotion will stand out," said Tiplee. "If you have any suspicions, please direct them to Aurine."

Well, it wasn't much of an assignment, thought Sascha, but at least it _was_ an assignment. "We'll be vigilant, Master Tiplee."

"Any other questions?" asked Tiplee asked the three other Jedi.

There were none.

* * *

The negotiations were being held at the Capital building, a tall, impressive looking structure that was one of the few buildings in the city of Bontha that was taller than a few stories. Because the Capital building was not that far away from their temporary home, Tiplee decided that they would walk to their meeting as a way of demonstrating that the Jedi were 'of the people.' While that sounded like pointless propaganda, Tiplee was a respected diplomat, and she reminded everyone that in politics, appearances were not unimportant.

Though they attracted their fair share of stares, the Jedi made their way unmolested to the Capital building. While it would have an oddly colourful building on Coruscant, it would not have stood out very much. On Ubrora, it was about as impressive a structure as he'd seen on the planet. About ten stories high with small, ceremonial parapets on the top, the building was painted yellow and red in a dazzling pattern that made it seem like something out of a post-modern art project. In his opinion it was a bit too much...but no one asked him.

At the entrance, the group of four Jedi e were greeted by an aide to the President, who greeted them perfunctorily before escorting them to a nice looking boardroom on the 6th floor. Sascha was amused to find that there were little placards laid out for each of them. His read 'Sascha Whitestar' with 'Jedi Padawan,' and 'Assistant to the Chief Negotiator' written underneath it. He held it up to his Master, "When we are done, can I keep this?"

Aurine smiled faintly as she took her seat, "No."

"You are so mean, Master," he remarked playfully as he slid into his seat beside her. The Jedi were arrayed with the two Jedi Knights in the middle, flanked by their apprentices.

The Jedi waited patiently for their counterparts to arrive, and they waited in perfect silence, as Tiplee had commanded. Ten minutes later, and with the boardroom door remaining firmly closed, Sascha was wondering if the Ubrorans had forgotten about this meeting or if they were playing some sort of game with the Jedi. Maybe this was the way Ubrorans played politics? Who knew.

A few moments later, while he had been daydreaming about...well…girls (specifically Remona Starflare, star of _Coruscant Nights_ , a show about a bunch of young detectives solving crimes), a gaggle of Ubrorans came through the door, with President Mollek the last of the bunch. The Ubroran President took the seat opposite of the Jedi delegation, and started up immediately, "Apologies for the delay, Master Jedi, but we were just putting the finishing touches on our rebuttal to your proposal. I have an annotated copy of the treaty with our comments, which I'm sure you'd like to look over. We have many…concerns that need to be addressed before we can sign a treaty that brings us into the Republic."

Many concerns? Sascha had thought that this would be a pretty open and shut negotiation. Tiplee though, reacted as if the news was expected, "We are more than happy to customize our treaty to meet the needs of Ubrora within certain limits," replied Tiplee smoothly. "We will need some time to look over your concerns."

"Of course," said the President, rising to his feet, "We will let you use the antechamber so that you can conference amongst yourselves. I hope for more productive conversations later." And just like that the delegation of Ubrorans rose and exited, no more than two minutes after they had entered.

Sascha wasn't exactly sure what happened, but he wasn't about to voice his concern until they were in a less public setting. The Jedi filed in to the indicated antechamber, which was decorated with colourful paintings as well as a matte black table to use, complete with datapad chargers.

As the door closed behind them, Tiplee muttered under her breath, "Tactics. I had not known the Ubrorans were such canny masters of political theatre."

"I'm not sure I catch your meaning, Master Tiplee," said Aurine.

"You don't? Padawan, explain it to her."

Nara sighed, "The Ubrorans have been playing the public perception game. They've made these grand showings of being polite and deferential hosts. Even last night, President Mollek seemed to be indicating that the deal was close. That must be what the public thinks at least. Yet, we come here today and he presents us with a list of complaints, and it must be a long list otherwise he just would have talked through them. Now, if there are delays to ratifying the treaty, the public will assume it is from our intransigence, because Mollek has been seen as 'Pro'-deal, the opposition can only come from us, or someone from the Republic. This is especially true as it is known as we were the ones who demanded the meetings not being recorded. Why would we do that if we had nothing to hide?"

Sascha was surprised by the keen insight from Nara, but he realized that he should not have been. Nara was apprenticed to a diplomat; it should not have been surprising that she had picked up some of her Master's diplomatic savvy. Plus, the Togruta was no idiot either. He had been along on some mediation conferences with his Master over the past few months, but nothing as high level as this…and Master Brynar's idea of negotiation was generally trying to make both sides realize how idiotic they were being, nothing at all like this.

"I…don't get the point of all this, Masters," he said, "Can the Ubrorans really expect to get better terms with these political games? Aren't we really just mediating between the Ubrorans and the Republic?"

The Rishati fielded his question, "Our goal is to present the Senate with a treaty that can be passed and that provides a healthy start to a relationship between the Republic and Ubrora. If we make a mistake, overlook something or concede too much, the relationship between the two could be strained, and all this negotiation will be pointless."

Fine, whatever, this is above my pay grade, he thought to himself.

"We should get started on their rebuttal," said Aurine.

"Yes, I want to give our reply as fast as possible and make them think that we haven't been taken by surprise. You all have the document?" asked Tiplee. Aurine, Nara and Sascha nodded. Tiplee pointed to her datapad, "Okay. Divide it into quarters, I'll take the first quarter, Aurine take the second, Nara take the third, and Sascha take the last quarter. Highlight anything you think is worthy of consideration. Talk to me if you have any concerns." Tiplee paused to see if there were any questions, "Okay, let's get working."

Sascha got to work immediately, reading over the comments that the Ubrorans had made. Sometimes they were just asking for clarification on a point, and others they were asking for something to be changed. By the way that the Ubrorans were referring to other treaties negotiated by planets as they entered the Republic, Sascha assumed that their hosts had paid a rather good law firm to analyze the treaty that the Jedi had sent to them. Of course with the relative riches of the planet, they could have afforded one of the top law firms in the galaxy – who had probably had everything from legal analysis droids to a team of highly paid lawyers compose the document. And to compose their reply...there were four Jedi, with half of them being minors, in a legal sense.

As he scrolled down his section of the list, Sascha snorted out loud on seeing the next annotation, the Ubrorans wanted to strike the provision that gave the Jedi the right to take any Force sensitive child born on Ubrora. Such provisions were found across the Republic, and it would be a warm day on Hoth before the Jedi let such a provision be done away with. Otherwise keeping the flow of Force sensitive children to the Jedi Order would be even harder than it currently was.

An hour went by quite quickly, but a little after that hour, all four Jedi had completed their task and uploaded their findings to Tiplee, who worked with Aurine to figure out which of the changes the Jedi could acquiesce to and which ones would have to be negotiated. While they did that, he and Nara composed a message to the headquarters of the Republic Diplomatic Corps, giving them an update as to the negotiations and giving them a copy of the Ubroran's reply. The diplomatic corps would provide support and opinion on what provisions could be changed, and how, though ultimately the decisions rested with Tiplee.

After both tasks were done, the Jedi marched back into the boardroom, more than a little surprised to see only one young Ubroran waiting for them. Tiplee, calm as ever, spoke, "Excuse me, could you go and tell President Mollek that we are ready to continue with the negotiations."

The single Ubroran stood from his chair, "I'm sorry, President Mollek is off visiting Wingke and he won't be back until very late tonight."

Sascha heard his Master quietly curse under her breath, but Tiplee remained unperturbed, "Then we will talk tomorrow. We will be here at the same time as today."

"The President's schedule is very busy this week, I'm not sure if he can meet you at that time," the aide stammered.

"He will either meet with us tomorrow, or we will be leaving Ubrora. Make that crystal clear to President Mollek. Our time is valuable and I do not enjoy being trifled with." Tiplee's tone could have frozen a river of lava on Mustafar. Sascha was pretty sure he got a chill just from standing nearby.

The aide stiffened, and his tail puffed out from its usual size, which Sascha suspected was probably a sign of nervousness, a defence instinct from millennia past, "I will inform him of what you said," the aide managed to say before quickly exiting the room.

"Well, if that doesn't get their attention, nothing will," Aurine said dryly.

"We may as well return to the house," Tiplee said, sounding weary, "Perhaps if we prepare enough, we might not get blindsided tomorrow."


	18. Chapter 18: Roadblocks

**Lord Darth Yoda** \- Politicians gotta play politician ya know! He is negotiating arguably the most important treaty in Ubrora's history, so he's going to pull out every trick in the book to get a good deal. As for the Force sensitives, the Ubrorans will have some more thoughts on that matter in this chapter. I mean Sascha (who has lived most of his life on the galactic capital) does see Ubrora as something of a backwater...because they are. Now he's never, ever going to vocalize such a thing, but of course he's going to be thinking about it.

 **thejoker122 -** The mission will get hectic...just not quite yet.

 **Bodare2** \- I love politics too (I was a poli sci major). I think you've hit on interesting points - I don't know how the Ubrorans will react to being in the Republic, and I'm not sure how they will react either. As you said, their society is so monitored, how will they react to losing that sense of control?

A/N - Another shorter chapter. Things will start to pick up a bit later, but for now you'll have to survive on the small doses I'm doling out.

Please enjoy the next chapter!

* * *

 **Chapter 18: Roadblocks**

"Did we really have to go to the market ourselves? I'm sure we could have paid someone to deliver groceries to our house."

"Yeah but where is the adventure in that, Nara?" he teased. Nara was being slightly recalcitrant as the two Padawans got ready to visit one of Bontha's largest marketplaces. Honestly, Nara's reaction surprised him. Usually Nara was basically the dictionary definition of enthusiastic. Nara Nalto was an odd person, he was finding out, the more time he spent around her.

"When I mentioned going on an adventure, I meant fighting Mandalorians, winning the affections of cute boys and entire populations, not going to the market to buy the Ubroran version of blumfruits."

"Maybe there is a cute boy waiting for you in the market, holding a blumfruit?" he teased.

"I don't know about you, but I like my men with less fur and less tails than these Ubrorans," said Nara.

"I don't know, I think you have more tails than the Ubrorans do."

"Head-tails don't count."

"Why not?"

"My head-tails are pretty," Nara said with a smile.

Sascha shrugged, "Well I'd keep those comments to yourself once we get outside."

Nara looked skyward for a moment, "Don't remind me. Now I have to watch every word I say because somebody is recording it for posterity. You know, I didn't really understand how much I valued my privacy before it got taken away from me."

"Well the faster we get this done, the faster we can get back home and back to privacy, yes?"

Nara made a quick shrugging motion and pushed past him and out the door.

"All right then," Sascha said to no one in particular.

Nara hadn't stopped walking since exiting their building, so Sascha had to hustle to catch up to her. Despite her obvious bad mood, he continued to be upbeat, "So I figured we have to buy a bunch of meat, considering two of our number are generally predators and prefer meat based meals. We have some frozen stuff still left on the ship...but it would probably be nice to leave it for the trip back. Can I assign the tasks of buying meat to you?"

Nara stayed silent for a long while as they trekked towards their destination. Finally, she broke the silence, "Why are we doing this, Sascha?"

"To get food to eat so we don't starve."

"Beyond that very simple logic."

"I...don't know what you are getting at, Nara."

Nara stopped in the middle of her stride, "We are being tested. Simple as that."

"So?"

"I don't like being tested," Nara stated simply.

Sascha peered down the street, he could see the marketplace in the distance, "Uh, okay? Can we go get food now?"

Nara stepped in his way, "Not going to say anything?"

"What do you want me to say, Nara?" he said, slightly exasperated. "If we don't get tested, we'll never be given freedom to do anything. And as far as tests go, this one is pretty darn simple."

"But what's the point!?"

"I don't think there is one. The point is proving we are worthy of being trusted."

"But I have Master Tiplee's trust," Nara protested.

"Trust isn't something you have permanently. You need to keep earning it," he replied.

Nara stepped out of the way, seeming a bit puzzled. "Maybe that's true," she finally admitted. Nara brightened slightly, "Lets get this over with so we can get back home."

"That's the spirit...kinda."

The two Jedi Padawans made their way to the sprawling marketplace without further incident. Sascha was still trying to figure his friend out. The more he got to know her, the more confused he got. In the market, Sascha and Nara wandered around for about twenty minutes, taking stock of their options before getting down to purchasing food.

It was very fortunate that Sascha had learned to deal with being gawked at in public, because being a Jedi on Ubrora was something akin to being an A-list celebrity. It was hard not to notice the crowd that followed them at a distance from shop to shop and the star struck look that every vendor seemed to give them. Even when the two Padawans tried to pay full price for the goods they were buying, the shopkeepers invariably gave them 'discounts' or in a couple of cases, refused to take payment at all.

Having bought all that they needed, the two apprentices walked back in the direction of their temporary home, their new purchases trailing behind them in a small cart. As they walked away, the crowd that had been surreptitiously following them from behind seemed to dissipate, and before long, the foot traffic was down to almost nothing. Nara released a long breath, "How do you stand being watched like that? I felt like I was an animal in a zoo."

He shrugged, "They are just curious, Nara. They've never seen a Jedi before, or even a Togruta. We are pretty uncommon looking compared to the average Ubroran. I expect the initial curiosity to fade shortly."

"I suppose so, I just don't like thinking that there were not just those people watching us, but if anyone in the crowd is broadcasting, there could have been like a million people watching us."

"Does it matter if there is one being, or one thousand beings watching?" he retorted.

The Togruta sighed again, "I guess not. I just don't like these cameras. I don't like what they represent."

"How so?"

"It's just...you never get the chance to be truly alone. With these cameras you are always in public, potentially, and I think that is unhealthy."

"The Ubrorans don't seem to mind," he pointed out.

Nara nodded a couple of times in agreement, "I get that, and I guess I should see it as a 'local culture' thing. I just can't for some reason."

"You don't like being on display," he said. "You don't like standing out from a crowd just because you exist."

"I guess. But I'm not sure why."

He smiled, "I do."

Nara glanced at him incredulously, "You do?"

"I do. See you are a Togruta..."

"Brilliant observation."

"...And being a Togruta, being a pack hunter – you don't like standing out. That would make you seem like you thought you were above the pack or wanted to be different. And considering Togruta are communal...that would be a bad thing. It would make you a bad Togruta."

Nara didn't answer right away. She clearly was thinking about what he had just said. Finally she replied, "You know, I hate it when you are right."

"Get used to it, my friend."

Nara tried to swat at him playfully, but he dodged out of the way and smirked, "Too slow, Togruta. You are getting predictable."

"How am I predictable?" Nara asked in a joking tone.

"You have a simple pattern – I outsmart you, you try to hit me. I might be a slow learner, but I _do_ learn."

"Clearly I need to vary my attacks," Nara drawled thoughtfully.

As they rounded the last corner, Nara spoke up, "You know we still haven't told our Masters about finding that Force sensitive Ubroran."

Lirri Boikana, daughter of the mayor and unfortunate soul that had the rough luck of being born on a planet that didn't test for Force sensitivity. If she had been born on, say, Coruscant, she would have been close to becoming a Jedi Knight and probably would have helped thousands of beings in her time as a Padawan. But, because she was born on Ubrora, she was just an average being with an undiscovered talent. What a waste. "We might as well bring it up, it might spare us from having to do more research for Master Tiplee."

Nara smirked, "Never thought I'd see the day where you wouldn't want to do research."

He sighed dramatically, "Even I have limits Nara." He had done so much research for Tiplee over the past few days he had felt like an overloaded computer – searching for space and processing power, but not finding any.

After putting away the groceries like the good little helpers that they were, the Padawans decided to broach the conversation with the two Jedi Knights, who were sitting in the living room, looking at their datapads. "Masters, may we ask a question?" said Nara.

Surprised by the formality of the question from the usually informal Togruta, the two Jedi Knights stirred immediately, putting down their datapads. "A Padawan should always feel free to ask his or her Master," Tiplee replied.

Nara started, "Okay, well, when Sascha and I were getting a tour from those two Ubrorans, the children of the mayor…we found that the daughter, Lirri is Force sensitive. She's too old to be trained as a Jedi, I know. But I don't know what the procedure is for dealing with someone like her."

"You didn't mention it to her, did you?" asked Aurine.

"No, as Nara said, we didn't know what to do so we kept quiet."

"Then you handled it perfectly," his Master said with finality.

"Okay, I think Nara and I understood that, but isn't there a next step? I know some Force sensitive beings get visions, and don't understand why they are happening to them."

"Did Lirri seem perturbed in any way?" his Master inquired.

"I mean she seemed normal, but I can't say anything for sure."

Aurine shrugged casually, "She's survived her life this long, there is no point in disrupting it by telling her what she could have been. It would only confuse her, make her resentful. Let her live the life she is currently living."

Sascha knew he was being a bit combative, but he didn't want to defer to his Master's argument...at least not yet, "Isn't that a bit callous? In different circumstances she could have been a fellow Jedi."

"The galaxy can be callous, my Padawan. While in a perfect situation, she could have been the first Ubroran Jedi Knight, we must take the world as it is, not as we wish it to be. Only then can we enact meaningful change."

He wanted to continue the argument, but he couldn't find a point to argue in his favour, so he decided on another tactic. "It just doesn't feel like what a Jedi should do. What connects us together as Jedi is that we are a privileged group that can use the Force. Well, Lirri is a part of that group, but we are ignoring her."

Aurine folded her legs underneath her, evidently settling in for a long discussion, "So, if we had it your way, what would you do?"

Sascha looked at Nara, hoping that she would help him in this conversation, but the Togruta gave him a marginal shake of her head, as if to say 'you are on your own.' He composed his thoughts on the matter, "I know that she is too old to be trained as a Jedi, and I accept why we cannot accept beings that have such obvious attachments into the Jedi Order. But we could teach her some meditation techniques or something. Something harmless, but positive."

"And you don't think there would be any harm in doing that," Aurine observed.

"I don't see how it could," he responded, with the sinking feeling that he had just stepped into a trap.

His Master leaned forward intently, "So we teach her some meditation techniques, we finish the treaty and we leave. Yet, perhaps she is not satisfied with just learning meditation, what if she wants to learn more? It wouldn't be impossible to teach herself some more advanced techniques since you've given her the basis for control of the Force. Maybe then, without the years of discipline training at the Jedi Temple she lashes out one night and hurts someone with her power with the Force. Maybe then, she falls to the dark side."

"That's quite an elaborate tale you've constructed, Master Brynar."

"But not an impossible one." "I suppose not," he allowed.

His Master continued to lecture, "Jedi are Jedi because we are taught mental discipline at a young age and despite that training some of us still fall to the dark side, as you should well know, apprentice."

Stung by her comment, he started to rise, but was stopped by the firm hand of his Master. "Sascha, I'm not rebuking you, I'm explaining myself."

He sat back down and apologized, "Sorry, Master."

"I think it's good that you wanted to help Lirri reach her full potential, but sometimes you have to realize that even as a Jedi, you cannot fix everything."

"I understand, thank you Master."

"Nara do you have any questions?" inquired Aurine.

The Togruta glanced at him quickly, "Um, not really, I think Sascha covered them."

"Good," said Tiplee, "Now, I think it would be best if you got started on dinner."

"But we just bought groceries," Nara protested.

"And did you think the meals were going to cook themselves?"

"No," the Togruta grumbled, "I just hate cooking."

Tiplee held out a hand, "Nara…perhaps it would be best if you let Sascha cook. To put it bluntly, he's much better at it than you are."

"Fine, I'll be in my room meditating then," Nara walked away somewhat petulantly.

Tiplee shook her head briefly at her apprentice, "Call us if you need any help, Padawan."

"Of course, Masters."

As Sascha headed to the kitchen, he reflected on the exceedingly glamorous life of a Jedi Padawan...

It had only been a few days ago that Sascha had been looking forward to watching a high-level negotiation like this one. Now he thought that surviving another hour while the Ubrorans haggled over some meaningless point would be among the finest accomplishments of his life. He was bored right out of his mind and was trying very, very hard not to appear that way to the Ubrorans that were across the table from him.

Mediation he liked, being able to make two sides settle on a deal that both could agree upon was one of the Jedi's oldest and most time honored traditions. This negotiation was nothing but tedious, and he wondered how Tiplee had the patience to re-state her and the Republic's position for the sixth time without even changing the tone of her voice. He knew how frustrated she was with the slow pace of the talks, their Masters had worked out some of their frustration in a sparring session last night. Tiplee already looked somewhat intimidating with her red skin and intense blue eyes, but when imbued with a faint tinge of anger, she was just about terrifying. Aurine had put up a good fight...but Tiplee was just better, which he knew annoyed his Master greatly.

Progress was slow; each point that was finally settled only became that way over hours of debating over the minutest of minutia. As the hours of negotiating went by Sascha felt less like a Jedi and more like a a very minor lawyer at the periphery of something that he was barely involved with.

He glanced over at Nara, to see how she was holding up. If you didn't understand Nara's body language, you might has assumed she was paying attention. Sascha wasn't so easily fooled. Nara's bright blue eyes, seemed to be glazed over and her head-tails appeared to be drooping, a physical manifestation of her boredom. His own Master looked composed, nodding along with the points that were being made by both sides, but in the Force he could sense her restlessness as well. The only one who seemed like their normal self was Tiplee, and for that, Sascha would have made her a Jedi Master.

Some discussions caught the attention of all four Jedi though. One particular one revolved around the Jedi Order itself. President Mollek was talking in monologues as usual, "I must say, that I find the provision that allows your Jedi Order to take any child that they deem Force sensitive is appalling and barbarous. I don't think that I or the people of Ubrora can agree to it."

Tiplee nodded as if the President of Ubrora had made a salient point worthy of consideration. "We are talking about one or two children in an entire generation, President Mollek, if that. Force sensitivity is exceedingly rare."

"Rare or not, we are talking about a child being legally abducted from their parents, and given to your order of peacekeepers. How can the Republic stand for civilization if they allow such things?"

The Rishati folded her hands together on the desk, "The Jedi Order helps preserve civilization, President Mollek, and we cannot do that if we do not get the members we need. Some of our wisest Masters have theorized that the presence of the Force in a child indicates their willingness to be Jedi, even before they have the cogent ability to form such thoughts. I'll admit that I'm not sure that I personally believe in such things, but I do believe as a Jedi that any Force sensitive child is better off with us."

President Mollek snorted derisively, "That may be the way that your religion tells you that it is, but I do not believe in this 'Force' and neither do the people of Ubrora. I can't imagine how I can sanction such callousness. How can I tell a parent that they have to give up their child, and that they have no legal recourse against it?"

Tiplee responded peacefully, "Any child that is taken to Coruscant to be trained as a Jedi gets the finest education in the galaxy, along with training that will help them reach their potential from some of the best teachers in the Republic. These children are hardly being tortured, they can leave at any time, but because of their ability to use the Force, they need to be taught in a way that shows them how to not harm themselves or others."

The President of Ubrora frowned, "But if I understand the way that Force sensitivity works…and I certainly may not, there must have been several Force sensitive Ubrorans over the course of our history, how come we have not found any of these people before? Why is there no Ubroran in history that has ever levitated a rock with his mind?"

"Because being Force sensitive is not something that can easily be seen," Tiplee responded. "A fellow Force sensitive being like myself can detect one and we will provide the blood test that can test for the midi-chlorians that indicate Force sensitivity. But Force sensitive Ubrorans may appear to live normal lives, they will just appear to be 'luckier' or have good feelings that turn out to be true. The Force manifests itself, whether the host realizes it or not, and sometimes that makes them dangerous."

The President conferred with his aides for several moments before speaking again. "I must admit that this is all beyond me, Master Jedi. You say that this provision is something that all planets in the Republic have agreed to. I wish I understood their logic better. Perhaps we can agree that all training for any Force sensitive that is found could be done on Ubrora. We would open up a satellite academy if you wish."

"No," Tiplee said bluntly, "This provision will be included as written, or there can be no treaty."

The fact that Tiplee was willing to be so direct, stunned a few of the President's aides, but Mollek himself did not react. "I see. Perhaps this is a good place to end negotiations for today."

The Jedi took the hint and left, walking silently back to their accommodations.

Once inside of their home, the discussion started, "That was unpleasant," observed Aurine.

Tiplee made her way to the refrigeration unit and poured herself a glass of bright orange juice, "There isn't anything I can do. I can't allow Ubrora into the Republic without this provision, because if I do, there will be a thousand other worlds that will demand to be treated similarly."

"Has the provision never been a problem before?" he asked.

"It has," Tiplee allowed, "but most times, the negotiators realize that, like I said we are talking about an infinitesimally small number of beings. Maybe one or two over twenty or thirty years. It would be illogical to derail a treaty that will bring the Ubrorans much, for these theoretical children of the Force."

"May I make an observation, Masters?" asked Nara politely. Upon receiving approving nods, the Togruta continued, "I think one of the problems is that the Ubrorans don't know much about the Jedi. So, they see this provision as the ability for us to take any child at any time and take them away from their parents. They need to see that this is in the best interests of the child, to see that they end up as nice young men and women. They need to see that every child given to the Jedi is a gift to the galaxy."

Tiplee smiled fondly at her apprentice, "Well stated, and I agree. How do you propose to show that?"

"Well," drawled Nara, "We have two fine upstanding young Padawans here, we just need to let the Ubrorans get to know us. I have a plan that will allow us to do that."

"Why do I have a feeling that I'm going to embarrass myself?" he asked no one in particular.


	19. Chapter 19: I am a Jedi AMA

**thejoker122 -** Nara definitely has a point about the cameras. I don't think she'll ever enjoy them...I don't think any of the Jedi will. Negotiations aren't going too well, but we'll have to see if our intrepid Padawans can do anything about that...

 **Bodare2** \- I mean if you met a Jedi for the first time and they were like 'Yeah, we are going to need to have the legal right to take your children' you'd probably be a bit wary. The rest of the galaxy has had a lot of time to learn about the Jedi. The Ubrorans...not so much.

A/N - I've got nothing.

Please enjoy the next chapter!

* * *

 **Chapter 19: I am a Jedi, AMA**

"I'm not sure if this plan of yours is completely genius, or totally idiotic, Nara."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence, Sascha."

"Well, I'm leaning towards genius but…"

On cue, Nara reacted with a sharp punch that caught him lightly on the shoulder. Wincing dramatically, he bowed obsequiously low, "I mean, I'm sure it's genius, your Togrutaness."

Nara smiled, flashing her sharp teeth, "Better."

It was a day later, and the two Padawans had been given the day off from observing the negotiations to execute Nara's plan. It had been Nara's idea to try to get the Ubrorans to know the Jedi better, so it had been up to her to find a way to do so. The Togruta had been up to the challenge, and after a brief discussion with their Masters, they had approved Nara's plan.

Nara had logged on to one of the most popular social media websites on Ubrora, and declared that they would answer any question submitted to them. Ubrorans had submitted questions all day to a central site, which then determined which questions were the most popular, and now for the foreseeable future, he and Nara were going to answer them while broadcasting live. They had chosen to set up a camera in one of the spare rooms, taking one of the cameras that had been delivered to the house and placing it so that he and Nara could sit comfortably beside each other but have enough room to move about and still stay within the camera's lens.

After double checking everything for what was probably the seventeenth time, he finally decided that their set up was functional, if certainly not perfect, "Ready?" he asked Nara.

"Ready as I'll ever be to answer questions from random strangers," Nara quipped.

Sascha pressed a button on his datapad, and a countdown appeared, counting backward from ten. As it ended, he could see the camera's light turn from red to green, indicating that the camera was in use. They were now broadcasting this stream so that any Ubroran who wanted to could watch. It was not something he ever thought he'd experience on this mission. Or ever.

Nara smiled and waved to the camera, "Hi everyone and welcome to our 'Ask us anything' broadcast, where you submitted the questions and now we will answer them." She pressed a button on her datapad, "The first question is: are you both single?"

Nara made a face, while he suppressed a laugh, "Both Sascha and I are single," she replied, "Jedi as a rule do not have relationships. A Jedi rejects attachment and is loyal only to the Jedi Order and the Force."

Sascha knew that although Nara had spoken correctly, it was not likely to be an answer that was to be well received by the public of Ubrora. Deciding that the best thing to do was to forge ahead, he read the next question, "What is it like being a Jedi?"

"It's pretty neat," Nara replied, "I get to see so many different worlds and make a difference in the lives of ordinary people, I can't even imagine being anything else besides a Jedi. Our lives are extraordinary and I feel privileged to lead it."

"Maybe you could be more specific," he prodded.

Nara nodded along, "It's just a hard question to answer because every day could be so different, here we are helping negotiate a treaty, but the next mission I get I could be trying to find an outlaw or delivering goods to a planet that needs them."

Sascha still thought that there was some things that Nara could elaborate on, "Why don't you tell us about how the Jedi work with local governments to solve problems." Part of the problem that Sascha thought that the Ubrorans seemed to have with the Jedi is that they seemed to operate without oversight and that they were superior to the local officials on planet. He hoped to point out that the Jedi usually worked _with_ the local governments to help solve their problems.

Nara seemed to catch on quickly, "Sure. Usually when Jedi go on missions we do so at the request of a planetary government. We Jedi are kind of like...problem solvers. We get called in when there is a situation that is too dangerous to handle or a situation where the help of an outsider is needed."

Sascha nodded at his friend, "There is a great diversity in the missions a Jedi is asked to undertake. The Jedi serve the worlds of the Republic, bringing peace, order, and justice across the galaxy." _We try, at least,_ Sascha thought.

Nara glanced down to read the next question, "Do you like your Masters?"

"I'll take that one first," he said. "Yes, I have the deepest respect and fondness for my Master. You have to understand that we are not assigned to Masters as young Jedi, a Master has to choose you to be their apprentice. So, Master Brynar had the pick of any Jedi Initiate in the Temple, yet she picked me. That's the kind of debt that you can never repay. She's also taught me so much, helped me when I was down and out, and perhaps most importantly, she never gave up on me." There were tears forming in his eyes, but he didn't mind, "So, yes, I like my Master very much, I wouldn't trade her for any other Jedi in the galaxy."

Nara shifted in her seated position, "Not sure how I can follow that, but I'll just say that I started off kind of lukewarm with Master Tiplee, but as we've spent more time together I've grown to enjoy the time that I spend with her. I'm honored to call her my Master. She's strong and wise and I can only hope that one day I'll be the same."

He cleared his eyes and read the next question, "Who is the better fighter, you or Nara?"

The Togruta grinned, "Allow me to demonstrate." Nara quickly hopped over and put him in a headlock, not anywhere near as tight as she would had they been practising unarmed combat, but it must have appeared tight to the viewer.

"Ack," he exclaimed. He quickly tapped on Nara's arm in surrender and she released the hold, "That wasn't nice, Nara."

"Aww, did I hurt you?"

"No, you messed up my hair." He made a show of meticulously getting his hair back in its proper place.

The Togruta rolled her eyes and turned her attention back to the camera, "I'm better, but Sascha is good in his own right."

"Thanks for the backhanded compliment," he said, swatting her lightly on the arm.

"I'll read the next question," Nara declared, "What is it like not having parents?"

The Togruta couldn't conceal a sour look on her face that she quickly tried to repress, so Sascha decided to answer the question, "I wouldn't say that we don't have parents, as Jedi our biological parents don't factor in to our lives past when we are very young, but we have surrogates. My clanmates were my family and there were lots of older Jedi around to help us and be role models." He turned to his friend, "Anything to add?"

Nara mutely shook her head and looked away. Odd, Sascha thought.

Sascha decided that he had to cover up for that bit of awkwardness, "I don't have any memories of my parents and its not until we are older that we realize that we are, in effect, orphans. But just as some of you may think its odd to grow up without parents, in the Jedi Temple it would be odd to find anyone that had an actual memory of their parents. For obvious reasons, we don't talk about our biological families much."

He looked down at the next question, "Why are your lightsabers different colours?" He smiled at that question, he was pretty sure that most schoolchildren on Coruscant could answer that question. "Well, why don't we show you?"

He withdrew his lightsaber from his hip and held it in front of him, and out of the corner of his eye he could see Nara doing the same. He closed his eyes and concentrated on breaking the lightsaber into its component parts with the Force, and when he opened his eyes again, he saw the constituent parts of his lightsaber floating in front of his eyes. It looked just like the diagram that he had memorized as a young Initiate. From the floating parts, he plucked out his teal focusing crystal with his hand and then concentrated again, reconstructing his lightsaber with the Force, just lacking the focusing crystal that would have produced the blade.

It was a cool trick, but one he had been doing for a long time. The unglamorous part of having a lightsaber was the maintenance of said lightsaber. Each individual part had to be inspected to ensure that it was in peak condition, because having a damaged part could be disastrous. His Master had always been keen on lecturing him about keeping his lightsaber in tip top condition, and he'd made sure that it was – just reading one story of what happened when a lightsaber malfunctioned had been enough incentive for him.

Sascha and Nara held their crystals in their palm, they were both unremarkable looking to the common eye, yet as a Force sensitive stone from the caves of Illum, they were anything but ordinary, they were priceless. "These crystals give the blade their hue, they are special stones that we both have a connection to. This allows my lightsaber to be more than just a weapon, it is a part of my arm, a manifestation of my connection to the Force."

Nara spoke up, "Neither of us chose the colour of our blades, and I have to admit I'm jealous of Sascha's rare coloured lightsaber, usually lightsabers are blue or green, and occasionally yellow. I like my blue blade though."

"Teal is my favourite colour, so I was very happy to find that the crystal that I was connected to was that colour." He looked down towards his datapad to find the next question, but felt Nara prod him in the Force so he waited for her to speak up.

"I think some people will be interested in the story of how we find these crystals. As young Jedi we are taken to the sacred Jedi world of…well, I'm not sure I'm allowed to say what the name of the planet is, sorry. On this world we are taken to a cave to find our crystal that 'speaks' to us and us alone. I know that sounds hard to believe, but the crystal cave is meant to test a Jedi, and ensure that they are ready to take this next step in their training."

Nara swallowed hard before continuing, "I actually…failed, the first time I was brought to the crystal caves. I was younger than most when taken to the crystal caves, but because I was so talented an exception was made." Nara shook her head, sending her lekku swaying, "When I was young, I was so arrogant, I assumed that it would be so easy to find my crystal, I would just look into the Force and it would appear to me. Well, I spent hours in the cave, which was really cold, especially for a Togruta like me. I must have explored every inch of the cave, and seen a million different crystals, but none spoke to me. Eventually, I just got fed up, picked a green crystal that seemed to shine brightly and went back to the group. I assumed that the test was a trick – and that all you needed to do was pick a crystal because any of them would work."

"When I brought it back, the Masters asked to show them the crystals that we had found, and when it came my turn, I showed them my crystal. It was then that I truly saw it for what it was, it wasn't a crystal at all, it just a rock that had looked green in the cave. It was actually brown. I don't think I've ever been more embarrassed, the rest of the Jedi on the expedition made their lightsabers on their way back home, but I came back empty handed."

Sascha was trying hard to keep a neutral expression on his face, he had never heard this story from his friend, and could only imagine how traumatic it would have been to fail in such a public setting. He would have been an absolute wreck if he had failed to get a crystal from the caves on Illum. It was odd to think of Nara as failing, because Nara was strong in the Force. But maybe that didn't mean everything.

The sombre Togruta continued her story, "When I was allowed to go back to the crystal caves a second time, I was…scared that I wouldn't find my crystal and what that would mean for me, I almost didn't want to go in the cave at all. After a quick search, I found something that called to me, but when I grabbed it, I found that it was just a rock, not a crystal at all. I…kinda figured that it was a sign that I had no crystal that would speak to me, that I was a failure of a Jedi. I sulked back to Master Yoda, you Ubrorans don't know him, but he's the Grand Master of the Jedi Order."

"I came to him just balling my eyes out, I could barely see through my tears. Yoda just looked at me and asked, 'Why do you cry, little Jedi?' I told him that I went through the entire cave but this was the only thing that spoke to me, and it was just a rock. There was this little grin on his face that confused me so much and he said, 'Hmm? A crystal I see, young Jedi.' When I looked down in my hand was just this unremarkable looking brown rock. I told Master Yoda that it looked like a rock, and that it was just a plain, average brown rock."

"Yoda crinkled his nose at me, 'Talented, you are, young Jedi, but not everything should come so easy. Sometimes, work for your goal, you must.' I was so confused, but if Master Yoda said my stone was a crystal, who was I to disbelieve him? So, I sat and looked at the stone, I looked at it through the Force, and then eventually I realized what it was. I took a small tool from my belt and chipped away at this stone, but as I chipped through it, I saw that there was a blue crystal underneath the layer of stone that had encased it."

Nara smiled, clearly remembering that moment, "I had to work for my crystal, harder than most, but whenever I ignite my lightsaber, I remember that hard work turned a rock into a crystal. My crystal is a reminder that talent isn't everything."

Sascha waited a respectable amount of time before speaking, "I had to climb a cliff wall to get my crystal, so in a way, you could say that I worked harder to get mine." He half expected Nara to punch him, playfully of course, but Nara resisted his obvious bait, seeming more composed and serene than usual.

"Let's move on to another question…."

After another day at the negotiation table, and after Nara and Sascha had gone to sleep, Aurine and Tiplee sat together at the kitchen table to discuss the day's events, "The Padawan's little conference has gone over well, negotiations were much smoother today," said Tiplee. "It seems that they may have managed to humanize themselves and thus the Jedi Order in the eyes of the Ubrorans."

"You'll make a negotiator out of that Togruta yet," she responded.

Tiplee smirked, "Somehow I doubt that, she's too much of a warrior to ever enjoy being a diplomat. I think she learns from me, and I think she enjoys learning from me, but she's never going to be a patient negotiator. It's just not her." Tiplee paused, "However, I do think the Padawans deserve a reward for their ingenuity. I was thinking of sending them off to the air base to the south, we've decided on how we are categorizing their Starfighters, but there are many things to still check over and make sure that they are up to regulation. I'm sure Nara and Sascha could handle such a task, and getting to work together would be enough of a reward."

"And you don't want them here for the negotiations?"

"I think they've learned just about as much as they can about negotiating. I think we've bored them to tears enough – lets reward them."

"I don't like it Tiplee," she said.

Tiplee frowned, "Do you not trust your Padawan?"

"Of course, I trust him. I don't trust them being alone together."

"Ah, so it is my apprentice you do not trust," the Rishati responded, looking nonplussed.

She hesitated, "Not exactly, it's the combination of the two of them I don't trust."

Tiplee raised her eyebrows in surprise, "Sascha and Nara have a strong bond together, I think it makes perfect sense to pair them together. They've done everything that we've asked them to do, it only seems fair to reward them."

"Their bond is what scares me," she finally admitted. "They remind me of Tyra and Sascha, and we both know how that turned out."

Tiplee seemed very unimpressed by that argument, "And do you not think that your apprentice might have learned something from that experience? Do you think that he and Nara are both blind to that similarity?"

She felt her cheeks warming with a tinge of embarrassment. "I think he learned, yes. But he is still seventeen, and emotional in the way that young people often are."

Tiplee shrugged nonchalantly, "And Nara is almost the same age and likes to flirt. So what?"

"I…just…," she growled, "It was so difficult to see Sascha after he lost Tyra, I don't want to see him get hurt again."

"I understand that, truly I do. But you can't shelter him, as an apprentice he needs to go out there and make his mistakes, because now they can be corrected, but they can't when he's a Jedi Knight and he's on his own."

She blew out a long breath, sending some of her hair flying, "You are right of course. We'll send them on their way tomorrow so they can do some of the tedious work."

"After all, what else is a Padawan good for?"

That joke drew a smile from her, "You are indeed a wise Jedi Knight, Master Tiplee."

"You should probably tell that to the Ubrorans tomorrow."

Aurine smirked, "If they don't already know that, we are truly wasting our time here."

"Then let us hope that they continue to be amendable to bargaining tomorrow."

Aurine put her boots up on the table, drawing a bemused look from Tiplee, "For tomorrow is another day."


	20. Chapter 20: Bases and Dogfights

**LordDarthYoda-** I love your theory about the secret conclave of Force-sensitive Ubrorans. I almost wish I had written about that! And yes, Nara will, by the end of this story, be as fully fleshed out as Sascha. Amazingly there are still more layers to her yet!

 **Chaotic Skunk Demon** \- Thanks! I see form five as a form that requires physical strength - that's not really in Sascha's wheelhouse, but I think he's picked up some form 4 from his Master (and sparring with Nara all the time). You are right with the Shien/Djem-so differences. Maybe when Sascha gets older, he'll convert to using some form 5 moves. We'll have to see.

A/N - Ran short of editing time, so there probably some mistakes in this chapter. Sorry!

Please enjoy the next chapter!

* * *

 **Chapter 20: The Galaxy's Worst Starfighter Corps**

The wind whipped through the hair of Sascha Whitestar as he piloted the Ubroran speeder across the open plains. Sitting beside him, Nara's montrals were implacable against the wind, making her look more dignified than he did at the moment. Both were very happy with the chance to get to spend some more time together, and spend it in a place that was far away from their Masters. It wasn't as if they were going to get into trouble as soon as they got out of eyesight, but it was a small thrill to know that they were on their own and had to protect themselves. What exactly they would be protecting themselves against was anyone's guess. Maybe getting a sunburn?

Their 'mission' as Masters Tiplee and Brynar had described it, was to make sure that the only major air base on planet, Falta Air base, was up to Republic standards. It was going to be a lot of touring around the base, checking that munitions were stored correctly, that pilots were being given the proper amount of rest time, and so on and so forth. Theoretically it was going to be a very boring day, but when he had made contact with the base last night they had promised both Jedi that they could fly their _Sarkiss_ class Starfighter, and he was very much looking forward to that. Flying was always fun.

"So are you excited to see the worst Starfighter corps in the galaxy?" asked Nara casually, having to raise her voice slightly to be heard.

"I'm sorry, what?" he responded.

"I read that report that you got from the Balmorrans that tested the Ubroran Defence corps, it had lots comments from the Balmorran pilots. The Balmorran pilots were savage, one of the Balmorran pilots called them the Galaxy's worst Starfighter Corps."

"Ouch. I read what their commanding officers wrote, but I skipped over the pilot's reports. I guess the officers pulled their punches."

Nara shrugged flippantly, "I mean it's fine, once Ubrora joins the Republic, they can bring in a bunch of officers from other worlds to bring their military up to snuff. But between their…uh…interesting…choice of Starfighter and the lack of military tradition on this planet, it was always going to be an uphill struggle for them to get up to standard."

"I think the _Sarkiss_ class fighter has a lot of potential, actually," he said.

Nara fixed him with a look of incredulity, "That's not an opinion I'd expect from you. I bet the _Emerald Dream_ has more maneuverability than their Starfighter, and the _Dream_ is a much bigger ship."

He shrugged, "I like good shields on my craft, and to get good shields something has to be sacrificed. In this case its maneuverability."

"Yeah but having a pilot and a gunner is just such old school design. It's too unwieldy to be effective."

"I bet you and I would work well as a pilot and gunner team," he replied, "You like to shoot things, and I like to fly."

Nara smiled at the compliment, "But not everyone works as well together as Jedi do."

He had to concede that was true.

The Jedi arrived at the base, more than a little surprised to find that they were not challenged at the perimeter of the fenced-in base. The base itself was a couple hours ride away from the city of Gamudo so it was unlikely that anyone was going to wander on to the base itself, but it did not set a good tone. The Jedi dismounted from their speeder, leaving it and wandered inside the perimeter where they were flagged down by an Ubroran in a grey shirt and pants, cut in a military fashion, which was more than a little undercut by his tail jutting out from it.

The Ubroran snapped into a sharp, picture perfect salute, "Welcome, Commander Whitestar, Commander Nalto. I'm Lieutenant Alty."

The two Padawans share a look, "It's nice to meet you Lieutenant, but you don't have to call us 'Commander'" he said.

"Yes, I do, sir. Regulation H-141 subsection 12, 'Jedi apprentices are to be given the rank of 'Commander.' You outrank me, sir."

Sascha tried to keep a straight face, "Republic regulations don't apply right now, Lieutenant. Ubrora isn't in the Republic yet. You can call us by our first names, I'm Sascha Whitestar and my friend is Nara Nalto."

The Ubroran evaluated them behind deep blue eyes, "I suppose I can make an exception," he allows, as if he was making a major concession.

Nara nudged him in the Force lightly, clearly amused at the Ubroran's...odd personality, though when she spoke, she was perfectly polite, "Thank you, Lieutenant Alty."

The Lieutenant waved them further inside the compound, "I suppose you want to see the base? Follow me, and I'll give you the tour."

Falta Air Base was quite unlike any military facility Sascha had ever been to. While he was no stranger to military bases, having been on several already in his career, Falta Air Base was just…different. For one, the buildings were all colourful, just like rest of the Ubroran buildings he'd seen. Most military bases didn't bother with decoration, because they were more interested in being utilitarian, but Falta air base had colour on the walls and many interesting paintings layered around the base. It wasn't necessarily bad, but it was just…odd. There probably wasn't a military base like it in the galaxy.

The personnel that he saw in the tour of the base were very different as well. The mood of the base was relaxed, almost casual. Usually, military buildings had an aura of professionalism that surrounded them, but Ubrora clearly missed the memo on that one. It was just a bit bizarre to see military personnel with their boots up on the furniture casually chatting back and forth while on duty. Again, it wasn't necessarily bad it was just odd.

Speaking of odd, Lieutenant Alty was one of the oddest beings Sascha had ever met. The Ubroran was an absolute encyclopaedia when it came to regulations, and just to make sure he didn't make a mistake with any of the myriad rules of the base, he carried a datapad with the regulations on them. He was an officer that was so by the book, he literally took the book with him. It made things in the base orderly, but he was beginning to see how the Ubroran military had developed a reputation for being something of a joke. Lieutenant Alty was a fine Lieutenant, he just needed a Colonel or superior officer that was more of a strategic thinker. Somehow Sascha didn't think that such a person existed.

After the tour of the base, the two Jedi went over their checklist, and started checking that everything on the base was up to Republic standards. He would have been absolutely shocked had anything not been up to code with the meticulous Lieutenant in charge. The only problem was that the Ubroran Lieutenant wanted to give the Jedi each and every detail of how he brought this base up to Republic code, which was painfully boring. Lieutenant Alty also had a very high estimation of himself. If you took everything what he said at face value, he had single-handedly turned the Ubroran military into one of the most efficient militaries in the galaxy. Sascha had half a mind to take out his datapad and show him the reports from the Balmorran pilots who had practiced against their Ubroran counterparts. He would never actually do such a thing, he just thought about doing it.

Hours later, after completing their checklist, Sascha asked the question that he had wanted to ask since he arrived on base, "So, Lieutenant Alty, can we fly one of your _Sarkiss_ class fighters? I'd really be interested to see how one handles."

The Ubroran looked indignant, "Of course you can't, you are both below the proper age, and neither of you have passed our training on our vehicles, so I cannot legally allow you to fly one of our lovely fighters."

Nara seemed like she was ready to haul off and give the Lieutenant's brain a good scrambling, but he had a couple of more diplomatic solutions he was willing to try before letting the Togruta have her way. Smiling his most genial smile he said, "I'm a more than capable pilot, and regulations that relate to age don't really relate to Jedi. Lieutenant Arty, I've put in many hours in simulators and I've flown my own ship on so many occasions I've lost count, I'm sure I can handle your fighter."

The Ubroran shook his head in a determined fashion, "Sorry, this is probably just a trick to see if I would break regulations. Not going to do it."

Sascha had to admit that the Lieutenant was tenacious, if wrongheaded. Behind him, Nara was none-too-discretely rolling her eyes, and her hand instinctively slipped towards her lightsaber. He had one last tack to try though, "Lieutenant, remember when I said that you shouldn't call either of us 'commander?' I've changed my mind…"

Though Sascha didn't turn to see it, he could almost picture Nara's smug grin as he turned the Ubroran's love of regulations against him.

* * *

There was something wonderful about sitting in the cockpit of a new Starfighter. There was just enough familiar about the controls, the yoke, the trigger, to give one confidence, and just enough foreign, like the control panel and the peculiar seat to make one realize that they were in something different and exciting.

The simple truth was he loved flying. He loved it and he was really, really good at it. While he wasn't arrogant enough to suggest that he was the best Jedi pilot his age, he was pretty confident he'd be in the conversation. Flying Starfighters had been one of the few things he'd been the best at in his clan. He still had fond memories of flying against his clanmates and winning. Eventually they learned that the only way to beat him was to team up against him...

But the most fun had always been in simulated exercises where they worked together as a clan. Tyra always gave the orders, the natural leader of the clan. He and Doro had been the tactical thinkers, passing along advice but always accepting Tyra's orders. Trigg had been in charge of morale, always thinking positively, always encouraging everyone to fly their best and keep going despite the odds. So many long years honing those connections and now they were half a galaxy away. Selfishly, he hoped for a time where he'd get to fly in a squadron with all his friends against some implacable enemy, winning accolades for their teamwork and bravery...

Sascha smirked to himself and chuckled slightly, a seventeen year old Padawan he may be, but the dreams of his eleven year old self hadn't quite died yet.

The young Padawan took the time to get familiar with the controls of the _Sarkiss_ class fighter. While some might have expected it to look completely unfamiliar to him, because the fighter had been built on Balmorra, it was fairly similar to many other Starfighters he had seen. The cockpit wasn't overly big, obviously owing to the fact that the average Ubroran was about his height. Still, he found it comfortable enough.

Once he felt comfortable enough with the controls it was time to turn to more important matters. He activated the communicator and spoke directly to Nara's Starfighter, "You ready yet, Nara?"

Sascha heard a muffled thud in his ears, "Ow! _Kriff!_ No, Sascha I'm not ready yet! I'm trying to figure out how to work the rudder!"

"I could get Lieutanant Alty to help you out," he suggested behind a smirk.

"I'd rather be dead," Nara replied flatly. "You know you could come over and help me."

"It's more amusing to watch you right now."

"Next time I ask for help, I'm going to remember this."

Sascha waited a few more moments, amused at Nara's growing frustration in the Force. Then he activated the communicator again, "There's a lever under the seat that frees up the rudder. Pull it, and the rudder will work."

He heard some rustling around through the communicator and then a sharp 'pop.' "That worked. Thanks Sascha."

"Well I wouldn't want you to crash after take –off…"

"Thanks…"

"…Because it would really damage the reputation of the Jedi."

Nara growled, "Very funny."

"Yes, it was."

"Give me a few minutes and I'll be ready."

"Copy, Slowpoke."

"Slowpoke?"

"Well…you have to have a call sign, clearly yours should be Slowpoke."

Nara clicked off her communicator in frustration.

Sascha laughed, it was always fun to prod at Nara's slightly oversized ego. All of it was done in good fun, though he was sure that the next sparring session that he had with Nara that she would 'accidentally' hit him hard in the stomach or toss him to the ground. He wouldn't complain. It was only fair. Wasn't the Jedi Order preoccupied with balance anyway? What could be more 'balanced' than that?

He gave Nara a few more minutes before opening a channel to her again, "Come on, Nara, we Jedi have a reputation to uphold."

"Okay, okay. Twenty seconds."

He smiled at the Togruta's frustration, piloting was one of the few things he was better at then Nara, so he enjoyed rubbing in his superiority in a friendly manner, just as she had on…numerous other occasions. He opened a channel to the base, "Control, are we good to take off?"

"Confirmed, Commander Whitestar, you and Commander Nalto are clear to launch," came the reply.

He checked over his dashboard one last time, confirming nothing on it had changed, before opening a channel to Nara, "Ladies first, Commander Nalto."

On cue, Nara's fighter lifted onto repulsorlifts a little shakily before gunning its engines and launching into the Ubroran horizon. He followed his friend out of the hangar, his flight was a little smoother than Nara's. He caught up to Nara and settled in on her wing as they left Ubrora's atmosphere and headed into space.

"Straight line speed isn't bad," Nara commented, "Let me put it through its paces."

"I'll give you some room," he said, dropping the throttle and giving Nara much more space for her to maneuver in. He clicked on his communicator, indicating that he was ready. Nara swung the fighter into a corkscrew and then into a roll, then banked into a left turn. The dual pods of the _Sarkiss_ just looked so ridiculous when trying to do anything more than going in a straight line. This quote, unquote, Starfighter was not built for agility.

But maybe it was the pilot. Maybe he could do better. When he tried to duplicate Nara's maneuver, he found that he has to fight the craft just to keep it steady. "Kind of ungainly, aren't they," he said.

"Kind of? I've flown cargo haulers that are more agile," Nara responded.

"It's not _that_ bad,", but privately he felt that this was a pretty sorry excuse for a Starfighter. It was just too large, too ungainly. Good shields and armament or not, in a dogfight it was often the most agile fighter that got the advantage. The fact that it had a mobile rear gunner was an interesting design wrinkle, but it probably wouldn't be enough to make up for the lack of agility.

"Wanna do a mock dogfight?" Nara asked.

"It's not a real dogfight in these things unless we have a tail-gunner."

"Well unless you want to go back down and pick one up, lets just make it a contest of piloting skills."

"Aren't you just setting yourself up to fail?"

"I'm not going to get better if I don't practice with people better than I am," Nara responded patiently.

Sascha almost wanted to respond with, 'I'll teach you a lesson then,' but that would have been too mean spirited. Nara was actually being contrite for once, he shouldn't rub that in her face, "Okay, lets do it."

Nara put extra power in her thrusters and flew away from him, while he turned to give the two of them some distance to work with between the two of them. He took a moment to look upwards through the cockpit at the stars above him. Off way to his right was one of the few gas giants that were in the system, the Ubrorans called it Galenta. From his perspective, the planet was a strong, deep red, with jagged storm systems of blue cutting across its amosphere. It was one of the most striking gas giants he had ever seen, and he was still rather far away from it. He wondered if he should suggest using Galenta as a tourist destination...he was sure there were some beings that would be just as mesmerized by the planet as he was.

A message interrupted his daydreaming, "Ready, Sascha?"

"Huh?"

"I'll take that as a yes."

On his sensors he could see Nara's Starfighter accelerating towards his. Sascha, having taken far too much time to gawk and daydream, had let his engines cool off knew that he couldn't hope to match her speed. Which was a problem. One that he would have to solve, and quickly, if he hoped to salvage

He chose not to go directly at Nara, but approach her at an angle. As he expected, Nara adjusted her course so that she pointed her craft (and more importantly her lasers) in his direction. "This is bad," he said to no one in particular. While Nara wasn't a great pilot in comparison to him, she was good enough to win a dogfight when given a tremendous advantage, which his own complacency had given her.

Sascha heard the sounds of a targeting lock starting to be acquired and he went fully evasive, jinking and juking the awkward craft around at random. Nara tried to get a solid lock on (which would make her the victor), but he managed to keep unpredictable enough that Nara couldn't quite get a full lock onto him.

With all his concentrated on keeping Nara from locking on to him, he was unable to stop Nara from settling in behind him. Now it was only a matter of time before she found a targeting lock.

Well, if she was facing a normal pilot, at least.

Sascha kept juking and jiving, but eventually Nara would close the distance between them enough that getting a targeting lock would be inevitable, no matter how many evasive maneouevers he undertook.

Time for drastic measures.

He juked his starfighter hard to the left, and then headed 'down.' Nara followed him, but she had to correct herself from overshooting. That's when he cut power to his engines and put everything he had into a sharp right turn. Nara tried to follow him this time, but she was too late in cutting her engine power, so she shot past him. Sascha banked his craft hard and settled onto her tail.

Even though he usually could fly circles around the Togruta, he was finding it difficult to get a lock on her, but once he managed to get behind her, he could not be shaken off. Nara was a good pilot and one that could shake him off of her tail on occasion, but the _Sarkiss_ fighter was just too immobile to shake a pursuer. He didn't bite on her fakes and eventually, Nara clicked her comlink twice, indicating her surrender, "Okay, you got me."

"Good flying, Nara."

"Not good enough to beat you."

"I got a bit lucky," he admitted. "Come on, time to go back to base." Putting actions to words, he headed back towards Ubrora and Falta Air Base.

* * *

"So you flew a _Sarkiss_? How was it, Sascha?"

The two Padawans were conferencing with their Masters back in the capital from the communications room of the Falta Air base. He and Nara were currently addressing a ½ sized holo of their Masters. "They are interesting fighters," he said, conscious that it was possible that he was probably being overheard by several Ubrorans, even though the Padawans were alone in the room, "But I prefer the _Emerald Dream_." _And most other Starfighters designed in the last hundred years._

"The base is up to standard?" inquired Tiplee.

"Completely, one-hundred percent up to Republic standards. The base commander is a…stickler for procedure," replied Nara.

"Good work, Padawans," said Aurine, and he and Nara inclined their heads in acknowledgement of the praise. "So, it's pretty late, I think it may be best if you stayed at the Air base tonight and come back to Bontha in the morning. I'm sure that they can find accommodation for you. Tomorrow, Tiplee and I are touring a Thys root farm with President Mollek, so we may not be home when you arrive."

"I think that sounds like a plan, Master," replied Nara.

"Any problems?"

"None," said both Padawans.

"We will communicate with you tommorow," said Aurine. "Remember to behave yourselves."

"Of course, Master."

As their Master's images winked out of existence, Nara immediately turned to him, "Sparring?"

He sighed dramatically, "Can't I have one day where I beat you in something?"

Nara seemed to consider his statement before shaking her head, "Nope. You can outfly me, so I have to take my revenge when we are on the ground. Plus, it will be good entertainment for the troops."

"Actually...I have a different idea."

"Trying to get out of sparring, I see," Nara said with a smile and a nudge to his ribs.

"I was thinking we could actually we could give these pilots some hand-to-hand combat training. Who better to teach them than us...you specifically."

"You are flattering me, Sascha."

He nodded, "Yep."

Nara nodded, "Okay, your idea is better. I accept...on the condition that I get to demonstrate all throws, holds and techniques on you."

He grinned, "So you want me to be your punching bag."

Nara grinned back and shrugged, "Don't worry, it won't go any different then how our hand-to-hand training usually goes."

Sascha looked around, saw the room was empty and then tried to drag Nara to the ground.

A few second later, Nara's arm was wrapped softly around his throat and he was furiously tapping on her arm in a gesture of surrender. Nara held on a half-second more than was polite before letting him go.

"Remind me never to try that again," said Sascha.

"Yeah, but where would be the fun in that." Nara punched him softly on the arm, "Let's go train some Ubrorans."


	21. Chapter 21: Plans in Motion

**LordDarthYoda -** When you are right, you are right...Things are about to take a nosedive..

 **Guest** \- Thanks for the reviews! I also think Sascha's a natural for form 3 - not that he can't be influenced by other styles of combat. His Master does use form 4 and 5, so he's certainly got a working knowledge of those forms too. When I originally was thinking of Sascha's character, I was going to make him have an aptitude for Battle Meditation, but that idea kind of fell by the wayside. He's going to show off a talent for something unusual much later in this book, but I'll have to keep what it is a surprise! Remember that Sascha's a crack pilot and that might be handy...

 **bodare2** \- The new king of predictions is you! I've certainly been dropping some hints as to what is coming to Ubrora...

A/N - So do not adjust your internet browsers, we are starting this chapter off with a totally new character on a totally new setting...but you'll see why he's of importance in the chapter. I'll expand some more in my plans for this book in the next chapter's authors notes.

Please enjoy the next chapter!

* * *

 **Chapter 21: Plans in Motion  
**

General Pravin Ecalt leaned back in his chair reviewed the data on his datapad one last time. Satisfied that he was prepared as he could be, he walked out of his handsomely appointed quarters on _Reprisal_ and to a meeting that he did not want to attend. He had spent better part of the last week trying to come up with some sort of escape plan, but he hadn't been able to come up with a plan that even had a reasonable chance of success. To be honest, he feared for his life, but he had found no alternative but to push forward and look for the first chance to get out of this nightmare.

The _Reprisal_ was a Lucrehulk-class battleship, formerly contracted to the Trade Federation's military branch. When contracted to the Trade Federation, the ship's name had been _Starways Defender_. It's mission had been to escort and protect Trade Federation convoys that treaded through dangerous areas of space. Yet after the catastrophic battle of Naboo, the Republic had demanded that every Lucrehulk-class ship owned by the Trade Federation report for decommissioning or disarmament, but the commander of this particular ship, the Duros Vash Varless, had defied the order, proclaimed himself Admiral Varless and gone rogue, renaming the ship _Reprisal_. They had spent the last few months as one ship pirate fleet, preying on shipping fleets and making Admiral Varless a rich man. A wanted man, but a rich man. But the Duros had grander plans than just being a pirate. No, Admiral Varless wanted to _rule_. And he was seeking way to make that dream a reality...

Pravin didn't want to rule, he didn't even want to be here. He didn't want to be a pirate. He just wanted to go home. He just didn't see how he could.

He had been born on Noonar to a family of wealthy traders, and while his older siblings had been groomed to take over the family business, he had been given the freedom to pick his career. Even though he had been given this freedom, he had only had one career goal in mind – a job in the military. Even as a youngling, he loved the military, he loved marching in parades, he loved playing with his toy soldiers, and more than anything, he loved reading about military campaigns. He would even make his toy soldiers recreate famous battles. Pravin had wanted to command armies of his own one day, and generously, his parents put him on a path to allow him that dream.

His father's connections got him accepted to one of the best military academies on Cardia, a planet known for producing top-flight tacticians and commanders. Even though he might not have been accepted completely on merit, he had proved over his years on Cardia that he was as good as anyone in his class. Though his friends had mocked him for his posh upbringing and the fact that Pravin himself was not exactly a crack shot or soldier, his tactical nous had ultimately won him the respect of his peers. Little did he know that those simple days were to be the best days in his life.

After graduating, his father's connections helped him once again as they got him his first job. There was a brushfire war on the backwater world of Talit IV, and the mining companies on planet desperately needed qualified leaders to train and lead their troops against a local insurrection. He had been commissioned with the rank of Lieutenant and placed in charge of a brigade of the smelliest, most useless troops in the galaxy. The transition from the world of Cardia where military discipline was the standard, to Talit IV where his 'troops' treated him with the barest of respect was a tough one.

Nonetheless, through hard work and patience, he turned his brigade from free-firing yahoos into disciplined troops in a matter of weeks. His commanding officer, a grizzled veteran of a hundred different conflicts had been impressed and ordered his brigade into battle. That was where Pravin discovered something very important about himself.

He, Pravin Ecalt, was a coward.

Despite studying thousands of different conflicts, Pravin had the idea that a battle was a clean, gentlemanly affair. There were rules to combat nd those rules were followed even in the harshest of conditions. He had been naïve…so naïve. What the textbooks never reveal is how a battlefield looks, smells..and feels... He remembered the blood…not even on the battlefield yet, he had seen the tracks of blood left behind by wounded troops as they retreated to the rear echelons. The chaos and noise of the battlefield was just so overwhelming, it was just an assault on his senses. The boy that had run his toy troops through many mock battles finally came to a real battlefield, and he found that he did not like it at all. He had led his troops from the front of course, but when the time had come to attack, his voice, his courage had failed. Instead of attacking when commanded, he had slunk away from the front, sold all his equipment and snuck off planet in disgrace.

He should have been ruined by what had happened on Talit IV, but there was nothing that his father could not repair. His father had recently begun selling goods to the Trade Federation and he had learned that they were looking for experienced soldiers to oversee their new droid army, and his father had recommended him for a commission. Pravin's resume looked good on paper, he had recommendations from his colleagues from Cardia, he had experience in fighting on Talit IV, and he was from an influential merchant family. After a short interview, he had been accepted into the Trade Federation Defence Force. Yes, the odds somehow were still in Pravin Ecalt's favour.

Being a part of the Trade Federation's military branch had been a godsend. He never had to set foot on a battlefield or imperil himself in any way, after all that was what the droids were for! His forte was tactics and though he despised how badly the OOM series battle droids performed, they never questioned orders, they responded as compliantly as the toys he used to play with.

It had generally been a very boring job, but one that he was happy with. It paid well. He got to see many different planets, and he generally felt like he was doing a service to the galaxy. Sure, people didn't like the Trade Federation, but everyone wanted to tear down corporations that became successful, that was just how people thought. Politicians thought it was ludicrous that the Trade Federation had its own military, but those politicians never traded on routes that were constantly patrolled by pirate fleets. The Trade Federation was a business, it needed an army to protect itself, and so they bought themselves one, even though it affected their bottom line.

Or, that was what he thought until the blockade of Naboo.

Whichever idiot had decided that the best way to deal with a trade dispute was to blockade the out-of- the way world of Naboo should have probably been put in an escape pod and released above an uninhabited planet, he thought. Not only did the blockade make the Trade Federation look like monsters, it was a completely idiotic idea. Did they really think that the Republic was too busy to notice one of its member worlds being invaded? The Republic might be too self-interested for its own good, but even the corrupt politicians of the Senate could see that if an invasion of Naboo could be successful – their planet might be next. And no politician wanted to see their planet invaded…not because they cared for the welfare of their people, but because they would see their power lessened considerably.

So not only was it a stupid idea that couldn't have possibly worked, the Trade Federation had also managed to lose in a totally humiliating fashion to a bunch of rag-tag Starfighters, and some Gungans with weapons that seemed to have been from thousands of years ago. How was that even remotely possible? Droids might not have been the best fighters, but they had strength in numbers, yet they had not managed to bring those numbers to bear. The only conclusion that Pravin could reach was that someone with an ego that was bigger than their brain decided to order the blockade, and he was glad that the person responsible was likely dead, or at least in disgrace.

The irony was not lost on him that he was going to a meeting where he would be initiating something worse than just a blockade.

He entered the executive boardroom of the _Reprisal_ at the appointed time, not at all surprised to see that he was the first to arrive, he had always been a stickler for such things. The other members of the _Reprisal_ 's leadership...not so much. A silver protocol droid greeted him and led him to his seat where he tried to look busy. Understandably nervous, he pulled at the collar of his Trade Defence Force shirt. Pirate or not, he still dressed the same he had for the past years. And despite the fact that he no longer drew a salary from the Trade Federation, he still considered this to be his uniform.

One by one, Nemoidians entered the boardroom, and Pravin buried his head in his datapad so he could conceal his disgust. He preferred the company of his droids to these Nemoidians, not that he wished to tar an entire species with the same brush, he was sure there were some decent Nemoidians somewhere, but those that remained on the _Reprisal_ were those that attached themselves to Admiral Varless' star without being coerced. He had overheard enough of their conversations to know that they were just trying to line their pockets as much as possible. For that reason, he would continue to despise them. Perhaps because he had grown up in a family of means, he saw no reason to live his life where the only thing you were doing was getting rich. Where was the honor in that?

Once all the other Nemoidians had filed in and taken their seats at the circular table, Admiral Varless walked in. Always one to make an entrance, Varless had chosen to wear a custom made all white-Admiral's uniform that made his blue skin and pitiless red eyes stand out even more than they usually did. Tall with a spindly build, Vash could cut an impressive figure when he wanted to. As far as Pravin was aware, Vash Varless had spent his entire life in the Trade Defence Force, but he had taken to his new life as an outlaw with extreme gusto. Freed from the rules of civilized society, beings that had no use to him had a funny way of 'disappearing' (subtext: being pushed out of airlocks.) Pravin was terrified of him, and knew that once his expertise was no longer needed, that he would be made expendable as well. So he had made himself conspicuously supportive of any motion proposed by the Duros, lest he lose his head unexpectedly.

There was no honor in dying pointlessly. At least that was how he got himself to sleep at night.

The room was silent for the Admiral who walked to the head of the table and affixed each occupant with a fierce stare. "Tomorrow we begin operation Final Effort, and so this is a final run through for what is going to happen. Before we start, are there any questions?"

No one dared ask a question. Pravin had always been taught that a good officer would always consider the advice of his junior officers. For there was no military commander in history that could know everything, and sometimes a different perspective was needed. Pravin Ecalt subscribed to that theory. Vash Varless did not.

The Admiral in the pristine white uniform paced, "As you all know, we have been waiting to find a planet that we could, ah, _liberate_ with the resources that we have at our disposal. I was beginning to think that we'd never find one!" Nervous laughter echoed through the room, Vash Varless knew how to play to his audience when it suited him, and he seemed to be in a magnanimous mood today. Tomorrow could be a very different story.

"Ubrora, such an out of the way little world, who knew it could be so rich and so ripe for the taking?" Vash shook his head, "If only they had the good sense to join the Republic, or form defence treaties with their neighboring planets, or had a competent military. Then we'd have no chance of doing what we are about to do with them. I actually think they want to be conquered!" The laughs this time are a little less forced, though Pravin occupied himself by re-reading his notes instead of playing along. War wasn't anything to be laughing about.

"Fexis, who is our contact on the ground?" the Admiral asked one of the Neimoidians, Pravin hadn't really bothered to learn any of their names. Not because he was speciest, but because all the Neimoidians he had met were shameless lickspittles.

"The mayor of the capital, Murgo Bokiana is friendly to our advances, as we have been friendly to his bank account."

"And this native can be trusted?" asked Vash.

The Neimoidian nodded "He is an ambitious politician, he wants nothing more than to be President of Ubrora, and if he has to do so on the back of our army, then he will do so."

Pravin, his head buried in his datapad, rolled his eyes discreetly. Bribing politicians was fundamentally useless. The only thing crooked politicians could be counted on was that they would always want more money, more favours. Power wasn't enough. Money wasn't enough. It never was.

Pravin listened to the briefing progress with half a mind. Finally, Vash took notice of him, "Good, Pravin, tell us how we are going to make Murgo Bokiana President of Ubrora."

He took a minute to find his voice, "We will land with our full complement of droids, approximately one-hundred thousand OOM series droids, one hundred AAT battle tanks and fifty droidekas. Our planned landing spot is near the western city of Gamudo. We will occupy that city, set up camp in the area, and send out small contingents with an administrator to subdue the three other cities. My plan is to keep the army together and react to opposition if and when it comes. I expect their army will try to stop us at some point, though I estimate that there is a good chance they will surrender just after our landing."

"And can they stop us?"

"No," he said flatly, "All estimates of the Ubroran army are that it is professional, but small, and ill-equipped to face our droid army. Assuming we gain air superiority as you promised, Admiral, I expect that hostilities will last a week at most." Pravin knew that he was being extrodinarily cautious with his estimates. He didn't think that the Ubrorans would offer battle at all - it would simply be suicide.

Vash turned on his heel, "Exactly what I wanted to hear! And then we will simply make Murgo Boikana President of Ubrora, who will sign a treaty legitimizing our invasion and give us the validity we need to negotiate with any party we so choose. We will modernize Ubrora, bring in immigrants to farm the land that the Ubrorans have left fallow, and reap massive profits. From there, once Ubrora is the economic powerhouse it can become, we could even add another world or two to our collection." The Duros' greedy smile plays across his face and it is echoed by every one of the Neimoidians, but not Pravin's.

"And you can guarantee me air superiority for the duration of this conflict, Admiral Varless?" he asked, aware that he was taking his life in his hands just by asking the question.

"Are you questioning me, General Ecalt?" the Duros replies in a low, threatening tone.

He forced a casual seeming shrug, "No, sir. I just wanted to point out that my plans were made with a guarantee of freedom of movement. I know we had to sell quite a few of our droid fighters as we could no longer afford their upkeep, and we sold many to afford the new communications jammer that we bought. I was just wondering if we had enough to subdue the Ubroran starfighters."

"The Starfighters that the Ubrorans have are pathetic. I will crush their little fleet on the first day, leaving enough fighters in reserve that any ships that launch from the surface cannot escape. No message will escape Ubrora until the planet submits to us."

"And you are sure that the communications jammer will block any transmissions from the planet."

Vash growled, "I have been assured as much. The Ubrorans do not posses the technology to defeat the jamming. So there will be no chance of anyone putting out a call for help. That means we will have full control over what happens on the planet.

"Understood sir, I look forward to seeing it."

"A last reminder, the plan is to not damage Ubrora any more than is necessary. After all, we don't want to damage something we will soon own!"

Laughter again echoes around the room, and Pravin again wonders if should have tried to use an escape pod weeks ago. He would rather be anywhere in the galaxy but here. Well, maybe not on Ubrora. He felt bad for the native population, but it was either fulfill his orders or die, and did not yet want to die.

The meeting adjourned after a few more minutes of discussion and Pravin went back to his room, a room where he could ignore what he was going to do tomorrow. He re-checked his gear that he would be bringing to the surface, a habit instilled on him in his time on Cardia. Pravin Ecalt may have been a coward, but he was not stupid. No, he had an insurance policy, but one he hoped he would never have to use, after all he liked living, even in circumstances such as these.


	22. Chapter 22: Invasion, Part One

**Lord Darth Yoda** \- Eh, I think you aren't giving the Trade Federation guys enough credit. Remember their army wiped the floor with the Gungans and were only bailed out by a 9 year old blowing up their droid control ship. This is going to be a war. Pravin isn't a tactical genius at the level of a Thrawn. Competant, absolutely. Thrawn-level...nah. I also think its amusing that Pravin has no idea who was actually behind the invasion of Naboo.

 **bodare2 -** It's indeed going to be rather painful for the Ubroran military, fortunately they have four Jedi to back them up. Unfortunately...they are going to be invaded. You make a good point about the Ubrorans having plenty of intel - we'll have to see if Pravin will have a plan in dealing with that. Intelligence advantages can often be used by good commanders *cough* Aurine *cough* to do damage. But the Ubrorans are certainly outgunned.

A/N - So, I'm going to talk in broad strokes about the direction this book is taking. The main event is going to be the war on Ubrora. When I thought about the stories I want to tell during the Clone Wars (when/if we get there), I tended to want to tell stories about fleet battles and small ground battles rather than a campaign. The war on Ubrora is going to be a campaign. Four Jedi and rag tag Ubrorans vs. a legit Trade Federation army. And this time their control ship isn't just going to randomly blow up. It's going to be war. And its going to press every character to the brink. And for once, a character might actually die...

Anyways Please enjoy the next chapter! As always your favourites and follows are appreciated! We are going to start each chapter with a quote, sometimes from Pravin's Journal, and sometimes from more interesting sources...

* * *

 **Chapter 22: Invasion Part One**

" _Dear Father, today I embark on a journey that will be quite unlike anything I have done so far in my career. Either I will bring an entire planet to heel and be reviled in history as a monster, or I will fail to do so and be regarded as incompetent. Know that despite my ignominious circumstances, I will always try to do as you have taught me. For honor. For family."_

-From the Journal of Pravin Ecalt, Opening day of the Invasion of Ubrora

* * *

Nara Nalto leaned back in her seat in the passenger side of the speeder that was going to take her and Sascha back to Bontha, once he got out of the refresher, that was. She relaxed, meditating while she had a spare moment. She wondered if she should ask Sascha to take a longer route back to Bontha, as once they got back to the capital, they'd have to do more boring legwork, and she would much rather spend a few more hours talking with her fellow Padawan. Sascha was fun to talk to and be around, he was smart, funny and he always took her opinion seriously, he was a true friend, perhaps her only real friend, she thought with a pang of regret.

Nara knew that it was a good thing that she didn't find him to be good looking, otherwise she might develop feelings for him. He was a decent looking young human she would admit, but she was kind of a speciesist when it came to men she found handsome. More than anything, she wanted to rub lekku with another Togruta, and Sascha for all his positives could never offer that. He was a friend, nothing more. As her thoughts drifted in her meditation, she wondered if Sascha might end up being her _Chartak_. It was an old Togruta tradition that each Togruta had a hunting partner that they hunted best with, someone who understood you intuitively, and who you wanted by your side while on the toughest hunts. Togruta didn't have soulmates, they had huntmates. _Chartak_ was a term that transcended sex and species and it was a term of endearment and friendship more than anything romantic, and thus a perfectly appropriate term she could bestow on a fellow Jedi.

But to even remotely qualify or to even start the consideration of broaching the topic to Sascha, she'd have to be absolutely sure that he was her _Chartak_. To do that, they'd have to be in a real fight first. While they fought well together, and were constantly sparring against each other, they still hadn't encountered much adversity together; in fact she'd been in much tougher spots with Master Tiplee. But, even though she was her Master, the degree of connection she had with her Master paled to her connection with Sascha.

Her eyes still closed, she sensed Sascha climbing into the seat next to her and readying the speeder for their trip back. Nara adjusted herself in her seat and settled in for a long ride. Maybe she could find a good music station on the transmitter to listen to on the way back. Sascha liked classical music, she, well, she liked love songs. While the two of them fit together well as friends, their taste in music could not have been further apart.

Unexpectedly she felt something jolt her through the Force. She sat up with a start, and found that Sascha had adopted a faraway look as well as he sat in the driver's seat. "You felt that?" she asked.

"Yeah, I felt disturbance in the Force."

She concentrated hard, trying to find what had caused such a disturbance, but she was unable to ignore the distress coming from the air base from which they were about to leave. "I think it's coming from the base," she said quietly.

"I don't think that's the only place its coming from…." said Sascha.

* * *

Half a world away, two Jedi Knights were doing much the same thing as their Padawans were, trying to deduce why there was a disturbance in the Force on what was a lovely day on Ubrora. Aurine and Tiplee were touring a farm where Thys root was harvested, upon request of President Mollek. While Aurine didn't have a massive amount of experience in dealing with agriculture – she was impressed at how technologically advanced the farm was. All the farm work was actually done by droids, and all the farmer needed to do was monitor the droids and transport the root to Bontha when it was ripe.

But all that was secondary now. She needed to find out why the Force was warning her that something big was happening, and quickly.

Beside her, Tiplee's eyes were closed in concentration. Aurine glanced around, looking around for a more obvious sign of a disturbance. That was when she noticed the anguish in the Force coming from President Mollek and raced towards him. Tiplee followed quickly behind her. The President had just interrupted the tour of this rather impressive farm to take a call on his comlink, and she had thought little of it. Now, clearly something terrible had happened. But what?

When they found President Mollek, he was crouched on the ground, surrounded by aides, seemingly unaware of the mud that now clung to his stately garments. While clearly in distress, nothing seemed to be physically wrong with the Ubroran. Aurine looked at Tiplee, who shrugged fractionally in return. Aurine cleared her throat and spoke at the crowd of Ubrorans, "What is happening? Is President Mollek okay?"

The Ubroran President struggled to his feet, pushing away his aides and turned to face the Jedi, anguish obvious on his features, "Master Jedi, I have received the most dreadful news! We are being invaded!"

"Excuse me?" she said.

"Some Admiral called Vash Varless has given us an ultimatum, either we surrender the planet to him, or he will invade!" wailed Keicho Mollek.

Aurine tried to keep the alarm from her voice, "Are you sure about this? Have you confirmed that the invasion ships are en route?" This had to be some sort of elaborate prank or trick. Who would even attempt a planetary invasion? Who even had the resources to do so?

"Yes, they just launched! I just received confirmation!" The Ubroran supplicated himself in front of the two Jedi, "You must help us! The Jedi are great warriors. Help keep our planet free!"

Aurine's mind reeled, if Keicho was not mistaken, Ubrora was certainly a planet that was ripe for the picking, but it would take significant resources to bring an entire planet to heel. If their mystery opponent had those resources though…Ubrora wouldn't stand a chance. It's army was small and more of a peacekeeping force. It's air corps were…poor to say the least. And, importantly, Ubrora had no allies and because they were not yet a member world of the Republic, they could not get aid from there either.

But Ubrora had been invaded before and had simply bought off its attackers. Maybe they could do the same here...

Tiplee spoke up, "President Mollek, the first thing we should do is get you to safety. Where is the closest military base? From there we can plan our next moves, and see what is going on."

Aurine approved of the Rishati's plan, the more senior Jedi Knight was always unruffled in a crisis, which was one reason she had an ever growing respect for her. One of the President's aides spoke up, "One of the main bases of the Ubroran Defence Force is a bit north of here, which is where the closest place to get an update would be."

Tiplee nodded forcefully, "Then let us go now. We'll ride in the speeder with President Mollek. Everyone else can follow."

As they hustled their group away from the farm and towards the speeders that they had taken to get to this farm. Aurine let one of the President's aide's drive the speeder while she sat in the back with Tiplee and the President. Deciding that she needed more information, Aurine withdrew her comlink and dialed her Padawan. Sascha answered almost immediately, "Master, we have a situation here. There is an fleet en route, and their intentions seem to be hostile."

Feeling the last hope that she had that there was just as massive misunderstanding die off, she asked a delaying question as she tried to her mind around this new reality, "Fleet disposition?"

"Uh, it looks like a _Lucrehulk_ class Capital ship and assorted tenders, the fleet are deploying droid fighters and landing craft as we speak. Estimated time of arrival is about fifteen minutes."

"Former Trade Federation military?"

"That would be my guess, Master." He hesitated, "What are your orders Master? We could try to get to the _Emerald Dream_ from Bontha and go get help from the Senate or Jedi Council, or we could help the Ubrorans defend their planet. But we kind of need a decision now."

"Or we could do nothing, this isn't a Republic world," interjected Nara through the comlink.

"Jedi defend the defenceless," Sascha retorted. "And I don't think whoever is invading is just going to let us go, anyway."

Despite their relative youth, the Padawans were both hitting on important topics. Jedi were defenders of the Republic, not random unaligned planets like Ubrora. Defending the weak and defenceless was also written into the Jedi ethos, but she didn't want to get into a war just to defend a planet.

Aurine wasn't out of ideas yet, "How about sending a message for help? Balmorra is relatively close – I'm sure we could negotiate a deal to use their defence force to defend Ubrora."

"Interplanetary communications are down," reported Nara. "It was the first thing that we noticed. We thought it might have been a storm, but then we saw the ships arrive and well…I think its clear we are being jammed."

She turned to Tiplee beside her, and shrugged – a gesture that said, 'I'm out of ideas.'

Tiplee however, wasn't, "I think we need to try diplomacy. Can we get in contact with this Vash Varless?"

"I can open a channel to their flagship, Masters," replied Sascha.

"Do it, Padawan," commanded Tiplee.

After a short wait and some static, a gravelly male voice came through the comlink, "This is Vash Varless aboard _Reprisal_. To whom am I speaking?"

"This is Jedi Knight Tiplee. I am with President of Ubrora Keicho Mollek. We have your ships on our scanners. Please indicate your intentions."

The voice laughed, "Jedi, I will take this planet and do with it what I will. If you surrender now, I will allow you Jedi free transit back to Republic space. As you aware this is not your fight, Ubrora is not a Republic world. But if you interfere..." Vash trailed off and let the threat go unspoken.

The Ubroran President leaned over and spoke into the comlink, "Admiral Varless, this is President Mollek, if it is money that you want, we can give you that. Our planet is peaceful, we don't want war."

Another laugh, "War is upon you, President, whether you want it or not. If you wish to surrender, I suggest you do it quickly, my forces are almost to your planet, and I cannot undo the damage that they will do. For the good of your planet, surrender."

"What are your terms?"

"Unconditional," replied Admiral Varless.

Aurine watched President Mollek closely during the time Vash Varless was talking, and while she didn't have the most respect for the President, he did not seem to shirk from the harsh words from the invader. In her mind that was a point in his favour. "I will never surrender my planet," President Mollek replied with steel in his voice.

"Then keep my suite in the Presidential building warm, Mollek."

There was a burst of static and then after a short pause, she heard Sascha's voice again, "Uh, the transmission has been ended."

"So much for diplomacy," said Nara quietly.

There was a moment of absolute silence from everyone. President Mollek turned to the two Jedi Knights, "Master Jedi, will you help us defend our planet from this aggression?"

"I don't see how we have a choice, President Mollek," Tiplee said, a twinge of regret in her voice. Neither Jedi Knight truly understood what they were getting into, but with their ability to get off planet limited, there did not seem to be much choice in the matter. Besides, Sascha was right – defending the week was what Jedi did.

The President nodded nervously, "Good, then I commission both of you as Generals in the Ubroran Defence Force and place you in charge of the Ubroran combined forces. You can give your apprentices whatever rank you think they need."

Great, Aurine thought. She was in command, but she had no idea what kind of force she had at her disposal, nor the disposition of the enemy forces, two things that were pretty much essential in forming any sort of strategy. One thing she did know, was that Ubrora was hilariously outmatched and in deep, deep trouble.

Returning her focus to the present, she said, "Padawan, is there a Starfighter still available for you to fly?"

"Uh, Nara, can you find out?" he said, clearly shooing away his companion to find out the information.

"Is the battle winnable? What did you think of the Ubroran Forces?"

Her apprentice took a moment to think about the scenario, she trusted his tactical insight, she knew from long hours of drilling him on the nature of warfare that he was as good of a tactician as any being his age. "The opposition force has deployed a large screen of droid Starfighters to protect their troop landers. I don't think that we can stop the landing, or even damage the landing craft, but we may be able to give their Starfighters a bloody nose. Then again, I'm not too impressed by the Ubroran military personnel, I don't know what their pilots are like, but I would estimate that they aren't at too high a level of performance. Still…it might be the one chance they get to fight the droid Starfighters while they are busy protecting the landing craft. If we give up the air war…I think we've already lost."

"I agree," said Aurine. As a student of military history, she knew that aerial superiority was one of the most important factors in determining who won a campaign. A _Lucrehulk_ class battleship had a significant number of droid fighters in its arsenal, but possibly not an overwhelming amount. In theory, if they could prevent their attackers from getting air superiority, they might have a chance at defeating the ground army.

Nara's voice returned, "They have one _Sarkiss_ left, it's technically just a training fighter so the shields aren't as good, but otherwise it can fly and fight. The rest are launching as we speak."

"That's our ride if you want us to take it, Master," said Sascha.

Aurine turned to Tiplee, "Do you see another option, Master Tiplee?"

The Rishati shook her head slowly, "I cannot. It seems clear that whoever is behind this invasion will not relent, and I believe it is our duty as Jedi to stop them." Tiplee closed her eyes, "If we have chosen to fight for Ubrora, we must use all resources at our fingertips, including our apprentices."

"You heard her Sascha, I'm commissioning you and Nara as Commanders in the Ubroran Armed Forces, go up there and take out as many of those fighters as you can. But if the battle is unwinnable, you make sure that you get back safely."

"Yes, Master, I'll report back as soon as we land. Where are you going to be?"

"We're taking President Mollek to a secure location and trying to organize the Ubroran army."

"Sounds good, Master. May the Force be with you," said Sascha.

"May the Force be with you, Padawans," she quickly replied, and the line went dead. A shiver raced down her spine and she wondered if she had just sent her apprentice to his death.

* * *

"Come on Nara," shouted Sascha as he ran towards the remaining _Sarkiss_ fighter that was currently being prepped by the support staff of Falta Air base.

How can he be so gung-ho for this Nara wondered? She had seen the sheer number of droid fighters that were heading towards the planet, but here he was wanting to race towards them. "Sascha…wait, what are we doing? We should be going to get the _Emerald Dream_ so we can go get help from somewhere. Not taking some 6th rate Starfighter that we've only flown once into combat. This…is insanity."

Sascha broke of his run, turned and took her firmly by both shoulders, then looked directly into her eyes, "Nara, this is what we do. We put ourselves into danger so that others don't have to. We can change the course of an entire planet, right here, today. You were the one that felt that you hadn't accomplished much in your career. Here is your chance make a real difference. Let's go hunting Nara. I need a gunner, and you are the best."

He's right, she realized. She shoved him playfully like she had done probably fifty times before, "Just making sure you are up for this little human."

Sascha knew better than to fall for her false act of bravado, but he just smiled, "I'll fly, you shoot. Sounds good?"

"It sounds crazy, but we are Jedi. We specialize in dealing with crazy."

"Let's go write our names into history, little Togruta."

Nara didn't even bother objecting to Sascha's use of that nickname. Maybe she was getting used to it. Maybe she was just scared out of her mind.


	23. Chapter 23: Invasion, Part Two

**Lord Darth Yoda** \- Our heroes will not escape unscathed in this book. Things are going to be very difficult, but for a great story there needs to be great challenges- and this challenge will be great.

 **Guest -** You are very kind to say that these could be published. I find that I make a lot of mistakes (I usually catch them the day after publishing my chapter!). Currently I have 90% of book 3 done and some of book 4 done. I think that I could write a good conclusion to the series in 5 books - but if I keep enjoying writing this series, I could write 7 or so books.

 **Sourmilk** \- Thank you for the review. Pravin's sort of honorable in that he does love his job and he does it honorably - but he's just found himself employed by the wrong people. He's kind of an Erwin Rommel sort of character (though Rommel was a tactical genius, Pravin's not at that level.) Yeah, Sascha's supposed to grate on you at times. He's a young kid with a lot of responsibility on his shoulders. And while he generally does handle it quite well, he does make mistakes here and there. And you are right to point out the difference between Nara and Sascha's maturity level - its something we'll see quite often in the rest of this book.

A/N - Not totally in love with my writing in this chapter. Writing dogfights is hard... But hopefully you all enjoy!

Anyways, all reviews, follows, and favourites are deeply appreciated as always.

Enjoy the next chapter

* * *

 **Chapter 23: Invasion Part Two**

" _I have been informed that a Jedi Knight is on Ubrora and will likely lead the defence of the planet. While Admiral Varless doesn't see this as much of a problem, I wonder, has he ever seen a Jedi fight? Has he seen how well a Jedi inspires his troops? There may be no greater symbol of hope and freedom than an ordinary looking being swatting blaster bolts out of the air. My task has gotten immeasurably tougher. But I will carry onward. For honor."_

-From the Journal of Pravin Ecalt, Opening day of the Invasion of Ubrora

* * *

Sascha Whitestar composed himself in his seat in his _Sarkiss_ class Starfighter. He took two deep breaths, calming his mind, trying to find his confidence. It's just like a simulator, he told himself. And very few people could touch him when he was flying in the simulator. However, the rational part of of his brain was yelling at him that this was not the simulators, this was his life that was going to be on the line.

Sascha ignored the rational side of his brain. "Never tell me the odds," he whispered to himself.

"What?" asked Nara. "Did you say something?"

He hadn't realized that Nara, who was in the gunnery station in the 'bubble' behind him, could hear him. "Uh...no. Are you ready?"

"Strapped in and good to go," Nara confirmed.

Sascha released a last deep breath, punched the engines and launched from the hangar, the last Sarkiss to be launched from the base. As he took his ship out he once again, cursed whoever designed this tub of a ship. Something this size should be as nimble as a Twi'lek dancer, not as sluggish as a Hutt on a hot day. It had nice shields, but he would have loved to be flying the _Emerald Dream_ right now. The _Emerald Dream_ probably had similar quality of shields, slightly better armament and vastly more manoeuvrability. Oh, and the _Emerald Dream_ had a hyperdrive. Small differences. Important differences.

It doesn't matter, he told himself. You just have to deal with what you have in front of you.

Somehow, that didn't seem to be totally encouraging.

As he flew towards the engagement, on his sensors he saw the first contact between the Ubrorans and the incoming droid fighters. Had he been in command, well, technically he was in command, but it didn't really matter at this point and he didn't want to confuse the current command structure, such as it was. Had he had full control of the engagement, he would have never sent the fighters into space like this, he would have kept the fighters in the atmosphere and used the fact that amazingly the _Sarkiss_ was pretty manoeuvrable in atmospheric conditions. It was too late for second guessing now though. Too late to do anything but go into battle and hope for the best.

He took a half second to remind himself of the usual capabilities of _Vulture_ -class droid Starfighters which he would be flying against today. Despite their small size and narrow profile, they had four laser cannons, which could give any opposition fighter a bad time. The droid fighters were known to be quick and agile with outstanding reaction times, however they lacked the ingenuity of a living pilot. So that was something he could take advantage of. However, the droid fighters made up with that flaw with pure numbers. By the way his scanners were overloading, it looked like the Ubroans were outnumbered upwards of 200 to 60. Definitely not good odds.

As his Starfighter made its way towards the fray in the blackness of space, he saw that the first casualty of the war. As the droid fighters opened fire from long distance, one _Sarkiss_ took a direct hit on it's left engine, knocking it out of commission. The pilot tried to compensate, but it corkscrewed into an oncoming _Vulture_ droid, causing both to explode in a fiery blaze. Sascha felt the surprise of the pilot of the gunner for a split second before they faded from the Force entirely.

He steadied himself, feeling the confidence of Nara behind him in the Force, the confidence of a hunter on the prowl. The gunnery seat swiveled in place and allowed the gunner a huge firing arc, which would be pretty handy in this engagement. He had confidence in Nara and in his piloting abilities, he knew that he was amongst the best pilots in his age group, but he wasn't sure even if that would be enough, piloting a craft he had little experience flying and against numerous enemies.

Still maybe thirty seconds away from being able to join the fray, he shook his head at seeing a couple of Ubroran fighters take potshots at the massive droid transport ships that were using the skirmish as cover as they made their way down to Ubrora. Shaped like a massive letter 'H' the durable transports had incredibly strong shields, it would have taken a coordinated and sustained barrage to take down the transport. Right now, the focus had to be on the enemy fighters, if they were able to shoot down or damage enough today, they could perhaps gain air superiority for the duration of the war.

War.

A few hours ago he had been playfully sparring with Nara, and now he was fighting against an invasion force. His mind was still trying to make sense of it, but he had to stay focused on his current task. There was no way to leave Ubrora but on the _Emerald Dream_ , the Ubrorans didn't have any hyperspace capable ships of their own, so they were stuck fighting this...war.

Then he was in the dogfight and there was no more time for thinking, only reacting. Nara opened up with the laser turret, and he felt her grim satisfaction as she caught a droid fighter across the stern, sending it twirling towards Ubrora, trailing smoke. Then he had to twist the yoke towards the floor to avoid a droid fighter that either was out of control or was trying to crash into his ship intentionally. Suicide tactics weren't usually what droid Starfighters did, but Sascha sometimes wondered why they weren't programmed that way. They were only good fighters in numbers, and if they could trade their 'life' for an enemy Starfighter, that was usually a good trade. Fortunately, this time, Sascha managed to drag his starfighter out of the way of the incoming projectile.

Turning back to the fray, he jinked and juked through the dogfight, firing his forward mounted laser cannons where he could, but generally paying more attention to avoiding incoming fire than trying to destroy the enemy fighters. That was Nara's job.

She was doing a good job of it too. The furball that they had entered had so many targets that it was hard to miss, and the Togruta was using the huge firing radius that was offered to the bubble turret well. The usual problem with a pilot-gunner pairing was that it was hard for the gunner to guess how the pilot was going to manoeuvre. It was not so much a problem for the two Jedi. With the two linked in the Force, Nara knew what he was going to do and he knew what she was going to do, that meant that they could compensate Sascha's wild moves and still fire accurately.

The numbers of the engagement were such that even as good as a pilot as he was, the shields were being battered by stray lazer bolts that were impossible avoid. He didn't even think that half the shots that hit him were actually _aiming_ for him, but the _Sarkiss_ was just so large that it just got hit. The shields were good, but they weren't going to last that long against a continued barrage of hits. Sascha reflected on the fact that the droid fighters were perfect to send against Jedi, because it took away their advantage of being able to sense their opposition pilots. He was still a darn good pilot, but maybe not as good as he would have been against living pilots.

As Sascha twirled their Sarkiss out of the fray for a second, he felt Nara's confidence slowly evaporating behind him, even though she continued to rack up hit after hit. Sascha didn't have enough time to see how the battle as a whole was going – he needed all of his concentration to keep the Sarkiss' shields from failing due to the constant lazer attacks that were being thrown at him. Maybe they were doing fine, but feeling the deaths of many of their allies was taking its own mental toll, and that little bit of distraction that it caused him could make a difference between avoiding a hit and taking one square.

Grimly, with the thrill of the fight having faded, he dove into the dogfight for what might have been the tenth or fortieth time, he couldn't really remember. He hit the thrusters, giving him the 'max' speed, as pathetic as it was and he fired his forward mounted lasers a couple of times, missing wide left at a droid fighter that suddenly decided to jink to the left and out of the way of his tracing red lights. He would have liked to have finished the job but he suddenly had something more pressing than being preoccupied by a wayward shot, as a flight of _Vulture_ -class fighters settled in on his tail and opened fire with their laser cannons.

He managed to avoid the worst of the first volley, though that was about all he managed to do. One more good volley like that and the shields would be history.

For the first time he, keyed the microphone on his headset, "Can anyone peel these fighters off my tail?"

"Save you? We can't even save ourselves!" was the panicked reply over the open channel. So much for comm discipline, he thought bitterly.

Sascha knew that he was on his own, so he made his craft move as randomly as possible, making himself as hard a target to hit as was he could. As he dropped deeper into the Force, he he almost wasn't aware of his physical surroundings, it was just him listening to the Force and trying to feel it as it guided his hand on the unfamiliar controls. The incoming laser fire still raked against the rear shields, whatever meagre manoeuvres he could manage with this ungainly Hutt of a ship were unable to shirk the more agile fighters on his tail.

"Nara!" he yelled, "Focus on the fighters on our tail!"

"You don't need to shout!" came the quick reply from Nara, "And what do you think I'm doing!"

Nara's return fire whizzed pass the three smaller, nimbler fighters, missing by what seemed like centimetres. Another volley of fire slammed against the craft, this time sending a fearful shudder through its frame, accompanied by the wailing of sirens that indicated that the shields were failing.

Lovely.

He realized for the first time that he wasn't even wearing a helmet or flightsuit, and it dawned on him that even if he knew how to use the ejector seat on his _Sarkiss_ , he wouldn't last long in the vacuum of space. He couldn't think of a worse way to die, freezing alone in a little bubble, waiting for his oxygen to run out…

 _Stay focused, Sascha, as long as you are still flying there is still hope_.

He can't tell if the message that comes through the Force is communicated comes from Aurine or Nara, but it snaps him back to reality, suddenly finding the wherewithal to force the ship into a dive that he abruptly aborts and then climbs as sharply as the fighter can. Behind him, Nara kept firing away determinedly, trying to take as many enemies down with her as she could. She keeps missing the trailing droid fighters by the smallest of fractions; all four of them are still trying to turn their Starfighter into slag.

Suddenly, a friendly fighter swooped through the furball, the tail gunner opening up with the twin laser cannons, blasting two of the _Vulture_ droids off their tail. Sascha is about to comm his thanks, when a cascade of fire hits his savior's stern, the craft breaks in half where the two 'bubbles' that house the Ubroran pilots meet. For a half second he thought that the pilot and gunner will be able to punch out, but that hope is ruined when something, perhaps a fuel tank, explodes, engulfing both pilot and gunner in it's fiery wake.

A range of expletives come to mind, but none of them seem to appropriate to the horror that he feels watching this specific life fade from his senses. Why do people keep dying for me? he wonders. What did he do to deserve it?

"Sascha, their sacrifices mean nothing if we don't live through this!" he heard Nara yelling in his headset. Idly, he found that Nara had dispatched for the remaining fighters that had been trailing them. He decided that the Togruta has a good point and he turned away from the fray, deciding that he needed a moment to re-evaluate the fight and catch his breath.

Finally having a second to glance down at his scanners, he was surprised to find that the battle was going well. Enemy numbers were plummeting rapidly, much because of them, but Vash Varless was finding out that the _Sarkiss_ fighters were tough ships to take out, regardless of how good the pilots were. Simply put the Sarkiss class fighters were tougher and harder to take out – plus the Vulture droids had never seen a Sarkiss before and were apparently having trouble in determining how much damage they needed to take one out. There were still more than than forty friendly fighters in the skirmish, with a few limping back to Ubrora with major damage, the rest, well…they were with the Force now.

Yet the numbers of Vulture droids was plummeting far more rapidly.

We are winning, Sascha realized.

As if at that moment the opposition commander realized that he couldn't hope to duel the tenacious Ubroran defenders and hope to come out the winner, the droids abandoned their skirmishes and dove for the ground, possibly intending to do as much damage as possible before returning to their mothership. It would be a way to claim victory – if the vulture droids could have

Speaking of the _Reprisal_ , the _Lucrehu_ _lk_ class battleship cut an ugly figure in orbit around the fifth planet in the Ubroran system, a large brown ball of a planet, but it was doing nothing to contribute to the battle, which Sascha thought was quite curious.

As the droid fighters broke for Ubrora, the defenders of Ubrora lost their coordination almost all at once, abandoning wingmen, comm discipline and anything resembling battle tactics. Through the comms, he heard as each Ubroran tried to identify the droid fighters that were heading for their particular slice of home and made to try to shoot them down first, even if it meant passing over other targets of opportunity.

Sascha cursed, fighting the current of fighters that was going towards Ubrora to pick off the straggling droid fighters that were having a heyday as the _Sarkiss_ fighters of the Ubroran Defence Force dove to the ground, showing them their rear shields. He and Nara cleaned up with a few of the smarter Ubroran pilots, who realized that as much as they wanted to, they would be unable to stop the _Vulture_ droids in their ground assault.

He opened a channel, "This is Commander Whitestar, we are going to hunt down as many of these droids as we can, but let us hunt in a pack, if we stay together, we can make these invaders pay."

"You heard the commander," cut in an authoritative sounding voice, Form up by pairs, pick out the biggest concentration of enemy fighters and then blow them out of the sky. For Ubrora!"

Sascha smiled, a wild, feral, 'I-can't-believe-I'm-still –alive' smile. Picking up his new wingmate, he found a clump of _vulture_ droids and tried to set an angle to intercept them so they couldn't get back to _Reprisal_.

Nearly an hour later and now an ace pilot by just about every standard possible, he brought his rather battered _Sarkiss_ class fighter in for a landing. The clean-up had gone as well as possible, though the droid fighters had done some significant damage on their attack runs, including damaging this very air base, they had been beaten back with severe losses.

As he jumped out of the cockpit, he was immediately mobbed by a group of Ubrorans giving him congratulatory handshakes and complimenting him and his flying skills. Hair slick with sweat and exhausted beyond measure, he almost gets carried away with the celebration, after all it would be nice to be recognized for his efforts.

Nara moves silently beside him, and her fierce glare keeping the revellers at a safe distance, "good flying, but we need to keep these Ubrorans focused." He knows that Nara is right, he just can't summon the ability to end this celebration, after all so many of their compatriots just died…

"Quiet everyone!" barked Nara, as she uses the Force to project her voice throughout the massive hanger. "You think this is over? You think this was a great victory? These fighters need to be refuelled, pilots need to be debriefed, and superiors need to be informed. Every one of you has something you can be doing, something you _should_ be doing. Do you think that those invaders are going to give up and go home? Did you forget that they managed to land a massive army? Our fight has only just begun."

Sascha feels the celebratory mood dissipate, but Nara's speech is too dire, not inspiring enough – it almost feels as if it gives everyone in the room a bout of depression. He speaks up, "This was one battle, but we are in a war. We bloodied their nose today, let's make sure there are enough of us around to send them packing!" This produces a cheer from the assembled Ubroran pilots, technicians and officers. The mood in the hanger is better now, they are aware of the challenge at hand, but they are also focused back at the task at hand, "get to work everyone."

As the Ubrorans get back to fighting the war that was on their dooorsteps the two Padawans find an empty room. The two embrace chastely in a short hug, just relieved that they were both alive, "good flying," said Nara.

"Good shooting."

"Good speech."

"Thanks, Nara."

Nara poked him in the chest, "We need to report back to our Masters. Come on."

"Can't we take one second to savour this victory?" he asked wearily.

"You my have one second," said Nara with a small amount of her usual enthusiasm.

Sascha closed his eyes for a second, and exhaled. This whole situation was crazy. He was fighting a war. A war for Force sakes! But this was the situation at hand. He had to deal with it. He was fighting for the freedom of an entire planet. But he would win. They would win. Because the Force had placed four Jedi here for some reason. He had to believe that.

He opened his eyes, "Let's go to work."


	24. Chapter 24: Downtime, Decisions

**Lord Darth Yoda** \- I think part of that is we've probably read a lot of the same books - because I tend to imitate the styles of those books somewhat. That's why you seem to be able to predict a lot of what is happening in these books. The attack was kind of a diversion - the Trade Federation did manage to land their army unopposed.

 **thejoker122 -** I think that Aurine and Sascha's relationship isn't really like Kanan and Ezra's. Kanan's kind of defined by the fact that he never completed his training. Ezra's definately more of the 'dancing with the dark side' type of character - he's more prone to defying his Master than Sascha is. As for the weaponry of the Ubrorans, they'll basically have blaster rifles (though not a ton of them). The Judicials would probably be better equipped, they'd probably have excellent resources and training.

A/N - Read the Ahsoka book that came out - second half of the book is pretty good. First half is dreadfully boring. Was probably the first Star Wars book that I actually thought I could have done a better job of writing! Such a missed opportunity to write a really, really good book. The book itself is fine, but it could have been better.

Anyways, all reviews, follows, and favourites are deeply appreciated as always.

Enjoy the next chapter

* * *

 **Chapter 24: Downtime, Decisions**

" _So the great Admiral Vash Varless_ _was defeated by a rag-tag_ _collection of Starfighters that we didn't even have the blueprints for. Air superiority is up in question for the remainder of the campaign. The Vulture droids are not great ground-support fighters with their limited range, but I prefer bad air-support to none. Nevertheless, our landing was unopposed and we now control the westernmost city of Gamudo, which surrendered without so much as a shot fired_. _May the rest of the campaign be as bloodless._

-From the Journal of Pravin Ecalt, Opening day of the Invasion of Ubrora

* * *

At the best of times, Aurine Brynar hated waiting. This, to state the obvious, was not the best of times.

She, Tiplee and President Mollek were now at Koza base, a military outpost in the middle of the main continent of Ubrora, a base that if she was in command of the enemy army, would be one of her first targets. And in fact, some of Vash Varless' droid fighters had tried to take out this very base – she had seen the droid fighters coming directly for the base and stood by helplessly. Fortunately a pair of Ubroran fighters had blown their would be attackers out of the sky. The debris of the two droid fighters had obliterated some farmland south of the base – though no one had been harmed.

Right now though she was waiting in an empty room, trying to calm her fraying nerves and trying to gain any insight from the Force as to what she should be doing in the middle of this war for Ubrora. The Force was strangely silent on the matter, which was not very helpful.

She was also trying to check-in with her Padawan. Though she was confident that her Padawan had not died in the fighting in orbit, the fact that they had not yet checked in via comlink did not sit well with her. If there had been any other choice, she wouldn't have sent Sascha and Nara into battle that she hadn't thought that they could win, but her Padawan had gone and done one better, not only did he survive, the Ubrorans won the first engagement with the invaders. It wasn't a knockout blow, but it seemed as if the air battle would become a stalemate, which meant that it would be up to the ground forces of Ubrora to stop the invading army. Which was great in theory, but knowing the number of soldiers that the Ubrorans had and knowing that their equipment was not the best, she was still not all that optimistic about Ubrora's chances.

A quiet knock on the door interrupted her thoughts, "You may enter," she said.

An Ubroran with shockingly red hair entered and saluted crisply, "General Brynar, we have a transmission from Falta air base, General Tiplee, President Mollek and Colonel Jeffs are waiting."

"Thank you, I'll join them soon," she said. Being referred to as General Brynar was a profoundly odd. She'd probably never get used to that honorarium.

The Ubroran scurried out of the room while she tried to gather herself. The Uborans needed a symbol of hope, and that symbol was the Jedi, it would do no good for the Ubrorans to see her as just another being that worried about the people closest to her. She needed to be an unflappable Jedi warrior. Aurine put her worries behind her for the moment, she was too disciplined, too experienced to do anything else.

In the communications room, Tiplee was helping a beleaguered looking technician as he tried to keep a 1/4 sized hologram of Sascha and Nara from fading out every couple of seconds. Well, that explained why she hadn't heard from Sascha – he had already been calling for her. From the brief glimpses she got of both Padawans, Sascha and Nara looked both tired and energized in a way that said that they weren't quite sure how they were still alive. That was the gift of youth. They still probably believed that they were somewhat invincible. Their youth served them well for the moment, but she was aware that neither had the mental fortitude to fight a war, they simply weren't used to loss. And this war was likely to cause lots of loss.

"We'll just do without the visual," she said crisply. "Padawans can you still hear us?"

"Yes, Master Brynar," replied Nara.

"I'm listening in too," replied Colonel Weise Jeffs, who until her appointment had been head of the Ubroran army. An ex-Balmorran officer, Colonel Jeffs struck her as a fine soldier who had been promoted one-step too many. The Colonel was not in the room at the moment, he was at another base on Ubrora, half a continent away, probably in a communications roomed that looked similar to this one.

The door to their communications room opened and a harried looking President Mollek entered, wearing the same dirty robes he had been earlier, "I'm sorry I'm late, have I missed anything?"

"You are right on time, President Mollek," Aurine replied.

The President sighed and collapsed into a nearby chair, his furry tail puffed out to its biggest extent, a clear sign of his distress. "So, have we had any success in getting a message out to the Republic? I'll accept the last terms you offered to me, Master Tiplee, just get these invaders off my planet!" said Keicho Mollek.

Tiplee, who was still conversing with the technician, finally stood up and looked over at the President. "It appears that our communications are being jammed, that is why we are having trouble getting the video connection to the Padawans and Colonel Jeffs."

"Did we get any message off?" asked the President.

Tiplee shook her head sadly, "I'm afraid not."

"Oh." President Mollek slumped further in his chair, "is there any way to get a message to another planet? We need help."

"We'll be sending our Padawans to Bontha to retrieve the _Emerald Dream_ , and they'll go to Coruscant and the Jedi Council to get help," she said. She and Tiplee would hold things down on Ubrora until help arrived – though depending on how slowly help came, that could be a very difficult few weeks. Or months.

Colonel Jeffs interrupted, "Um, if I may General Brynar, General Tiplee, the reports coming in from Bontha are that the hanger that your ship was stored in has received severe damage," said Colonel Jeffs. "I'm…actually looking at video footage of the hanger right now, and it looks like the whole thing is rubble now. I doubt that your ship will you be able to escape that."

"Can you send someone over to check the status of the _Emerald Dream_?" said Tiplee.

"I'll do that right away," replied the Colonel.

"Oh, this is horrible, horrible!" said President Mollek as he rose from his chair, "Are you telling me that there is no way to get a message off planet?"

Aurine felt a little bit of the hope she had left fade. She had at least wanted to spare her the two Padawans from the worst of this conflict, but even that hope had been dashed. The four Jedi looked to be trapped on Ubrora for now. Aurine tried to remain unflappable, "I assume that _Reprisal_ is the one that is jamming us?" she asked the Ubroran technician.

Nervously, the technician's tail puffed out, which would have been hilarious had they not been in the middle of a war conference, "From what I can tell, yes…sir."

The _Reprisal_ was going to be a problem. If it was the one doing this jamming...it was going to be very difficult to get rid of. Quickly, she decided to change the course of the conversation, "We should just focus on what we can control. We can deal with the rest later. Padawans, what happened in the battle?"

"We engaged the invading Starfighters and caused them to retreat, though their landing forces landed unopposed and their fighters were able to do some damage to targets across Ubrora," said Sascha. "The base is now refuelling the fighters. We have 42 operational _Sarkiss_ fighters with more coming on line as they get repaired. 16 fighters were lost in the engagement."

"Is that enough to guarantee air superiority?" she asked.

Sascha took a moment and then responded, "I doubt it. I believe that Admiral Varless held a fair number of fighters back to protect his fleet, so he will have a good number of droid fighters still remaining. I think we'll have to stay entirely on the defensive. I believe we can deny them air superiority, but I don't think we can claim it ourselves."

"Do we have any idea as to the composition of the enemy ground forces?" asked Tiplee.

"Our early estimates are that they landed approximately 100,000 droids just north of Gamudo in the west. I can also report that the city of Gamudo has surrendered. With their army landing right outside, it seemed like the prudent thing to do," replied Colonel Jeffs.

Aurine suppressed a groan, if the invaders gained control of the four major cities of Ubrora, they could make a realistic claim that they were the legitimate government of the planet at which time they could negotiate as such. At that point, Admiral Varless could sell off…say farming rights, to the Hutt Cartel, for more reinforcements for which to crush what was left of the resistance, if any was left. However, as long as the current government remained in place and its cities remained unconquered, no invader could make a realistic claim that they controlled Ubrora at all. That meant that protecting the cities had to be a priority.

She turned to President Mollek, "You need to make a statement that prevents the other cities from surrendering."

"I will do that if you think it helps, Master Jedi."

"This goes double for the capital city," she added, "Can you make sure that mayor Boikana understands this? You can offer him safe passage to a military base if he wants it."

President Mollek hesitated for a moment before nodding, "He is a rival of mine, and I believe he wants my title, but I think he will see sense for the moment. We have to be a united people for now"

Aurine nodded, "Good, what is the status of the army, Colonel Jeffs?"

"We are recalling everyone from leave, and we have mobilized the army to it's fullest extent. We have also opened up recruiting centers, we are taking every Ubroran of legal age and giving them a crash course in how to be a soldier, but the numbers coming in are a bit lower…than I expected."

"We Uborans don't like to fight," chimed in President Mollek, "All those that may enjoy army life have likely already joined."

"Do you have weapons to equip these new recruits?"

"We have a large cache of weapons, but we won't have armour for most of these new troops, due to the unique physical characteristics of Ubrorans, the armour has to be custom made," said the Colonel.

"How about artillery, tanks?"

"We have none of those," he said apologetically. "This is a small defence force, not an army, General Brynar. We are the police with slightly bigger guns. Ubrorans have not fought in a conflict for thousands of years."

"We are a peaceful people," admitted President Mollek.

Aurine started to pace, "So our army is more of a casual militia."

"Well…we are professional, but yes, I'd characterize us as such," answered Colonel Jeffs.

At least they were a militia with four Jedi, but up against an army that likely did have artillery, tanks and more heavy equipment, they were hardly going to be an obstacle. "What kind of numbers are we talking about, Colonel?" She already knew the answer from the research that she had done before reaching Ubrora, but she hoped beyond hope that her information had been wrong.

"We have 7,500 professional soldiers, and with new recruits coming in, I estimate we can more than triple the size of the army to about 25,000, though some may have to use non-regulation weaponry."

The numbers were even lower than Aurine had expected, at best the Ubrorans were outnumbered four to one, and the droid army likely had the benefit of things like tanks and artillery. As fond of her tactical ability as she was, this was not a fight she thought of as winnable. At least in a direct battle. The Trade Federation's military was coming off an ignominious defeat to the ragtag Naboo Defence Force, but that had been only because the Nabooans had managed to destroy the ship that controlled the droid army on the planet. And that had been a massive fluke. She doubted that they would be so lucky with the _Reprisal_.

As Aurine contemplated, Tiplee took command of the situation, "Colonel Jeffs, is there an elite unit within the Ubroran army?" asked Tiplee.

"We call them the Ubroran Rangers, they are our best and brightest," said the Colonel with a hint of pride, "I'd say they are the equal of any troops I trained on Balmorra."

"Thank you, Colonel, I believe that I need to discuss what our next step will be with my colleague," Tiplee said smoothly. "If we have need of you or President Mollek, rest assured we will be in contact with both of you."

"Of course, sir. I remain at the ready," said Colonel Jeffs, before signing off.

President Mollek stood, "I suppose I will make a broadcast specifically for all of Ubrora."

Something just occurred to Aurine at that moment, "President Mollek, did you...broadcast all of our meeting?" Aurine asked.

"Why...of course I did."

Aurine turned away and focused on taking deep, calming breaths. The President of Ubrora had been transmitting their secret war council as they were making plans to defend their planet? Was Mollek dense?

Fortunately, her partner had a lot compose than she did, "Perhaps you should refrain from broadcasting anything related to the war effort, President Mollek," said Tiplee. "If only just for your own safety."

"If you think that is best," said the Ubroan uncertainly. "I do so hate to alter things. Ever since becoming President I have broadcasted every moment of my public life."

"This is a highly unusual time, to say the least, President Mollek," Tiplee said smoothly. Perhaps you should promise a daily broadcast. But beyond that, we need to keep your location as secretive as possible."

The Ubroran still seemed slightly puzzled, but bowed slightly and nodded, "I bow to your expertise, Master Jedi. I shall get started on my broadcast." The Ubroran also made his way out of the room.

Finally, with the room now empty, Aurine could say what she was too disciplined to say with the head of state in the room, "Is Mollek a complete and total braindead idiot?"

Tiplee seemed to be rather calm about the whole thing, "It was a mistake, but we did not discuss anything too crucial. The Ubrorans are not a warlike people, you cannot expect them to instantly adapt."

"I would be more calm if there was anything to be calm about," she replied.

"Getting upset about it seems like the least productive way to go about things," said Tiplee.

There was something Luminara-esque about Tiplee's soft, unrelenting logic that seemed familiar to Aurine. It was always annoying to be paired with other Jedi Knights that were just so dang wise and unflappable. She let out a very long breath, "You are right, of course. This is just a lot to adapt to."

Tiplee nodded, "It is. But you are the one that understands tactics Aurine, what is our best course of action here?"

"Not fighting at all," she replied, "I'm not sure that this is a winnable fight. We should keep thinking of ways to get off this planet."

"We might not have the most numbers," Tiplee said cautiously, "But we still are Jedi, and we count for quite a bit."

The feathery-haired Tiplee seemed to have adjusted to these changed circumstances better than she had, she was still trying to get around the idea that she was commanding an army of her own. Tactics simulators were one thing, having the fate of an entire planet on her shoulders was another.

Tiplee continued, "I think we should keep the Padawans with the Ubroran air force, Sascha is a superior pilot and we should ensure that the air assets that Admiral Varless has cannot be used against us."

"I actually don't think we should," she said, turning over the idea in her head, "I think I'm going to send them to Bontha."

"Bontha? Why not keep them as pilots? Unless you want to put them to work in seeing if they can free the _Emerald Dream._ "

"I can't plan around the idea that the _Dream_ is salvageable," she admitted. As much as she'd like to hope that the report had been wrong and the _Emerald Dream_ was ready to be flown, she suspected that Vash's droid fighters had made sure that the hangar and the ship itself would be rubble. She also was pretty sure Sascha would be distraught. "Anyway, unless something disastrous happens to the Ubroran air force, there will likely be a stalemate, we won't be able to use the _Sarkiss_ fighters to support the army, nor will they be able to use their droid fighters to support their army. As good a pilot as Sascha is…he won't be able to matter in a significant way."

"I understand," said Tiplee slowly, "But why Bontha? I think we could make better use of our apprentices if they were here with us."

Fully warming to the tactical challenge at hand, she started elucidating her reasoning, "We can't even hope to win a straight-up fight with the invading army. Droid armies are too efficient, and the Ubroran army just isn't up to snuff. So where does that leave us? Well, we need to whittle down the opposition army enough so that it becomes a more manageable size. That means harassment, hit and fade attacks…and stirring up a resistance in cities that the enemy thinks they have conquered."

"Running a resistance sounds like a job for an experienced Jedi Knight," said Tiplee, "not a pair of apprentices, and besides, Bontha hasn't even fallen yet."

"It will," she replied, "We aren't in any position to stop it, we will be better off defending the other two cities. Gamudo is gone, and I'm sure the commander of our invasion force will be dispatching a force to conquer the capital as soon as possible. Judging by how quickly Gamudo capitulated, without someone to stand up to the invaders, that city will fall as well."

"I agree with your analysis, but again, why is that not my task, or yours?"

Aurine hesitated, "Sascha knows how to organize and lead a resistance, it's one of the myriad things that I've taught him." Tiplee raised a blue eyebrow at her but did not make a further comment. "I accept that it is a lot of responsibility to hand a pair of teenagers, but the Jedi are symbols of hope on this world, and Sascha and Nara can easily become symbols of the resistance. If they can get the Ubrorans to rally to their cause, we may not have to fight the full strength of the invading army, as they'll be too busy trying to keep what they have taken. We can defend the remaining two cities, Namya and Wingke. The terrain there will allow us to potentially set up some ambushes."

The Rishati didn't seem to be entirely convinced, "Still, leading a resistance is dangerous. Their allies will not be trained soldiers, and that brings its own set of complications. All it would take is one of their companions to turn on them, and then…"

"And then they'll die."

Tiplee paled slightly and, even she felt a pang of emotion, having been so callous, even in theory, about the death of her apprentice. Sascha was dear to her, he was her child in many ways, but there wasn't a way to keep him from this, not if they ever hoped to leave this planet alive.

Aurine forced a shrug, "I mean we could find a basement to lock them in, which might keep them safe, until their air runs out, of course. They are Jedi. In a war…they are assets that have to be used to their fullest, and this is the plan that gives them the best chance of having a large impact without putting them in too much danger." _She hoped_.

"And you are comfortable in having Sascha and Nara be together for an extended period of time?"

"No," she said bluntly, "But I can't see any other choice."

"I believe that together, Sascha and Nara can accomplish much," Tiplee said with quiet confidence.

Aurine bit back a further comment, she knew that Nara and Sascha could work well together. What she feared was it was that if they were left alone for a long time, feelings would develop between them. Right now, she couldn't even begin to worry about such things, she had to be a dispassionate military commander. There was no room for Jedi Knight Aurine Brynar anymore, she could only afford to be General Brynar.

General Brynar spoke, "I'll help Colonel Jeffs in commanding the army and training the new recruits, I think I'm best suited to assisting him in devising the best ambushes I can. I could use the help, Tiplee, I need someone on whom I can trust to be with me."

Tiplee's eyes glazed over for a second, and she felt her dipping her metaphorical toe into the pool that was the Force, "I believe that I must walk a different path for the moment," she said quietly. "If we are truly desperate, and I believe we are, it's time for me to let myself be something I haven't been in a long while. It's time for me to hunt."

Truly unnerved by the odd speech given by Tiplee, she felt a shiver race up her spine, "What do you mean, Master Tiplee?"

Her blue eyes burning with emotion, the Rishati spoke with a determination that Aurine hadn't ever seen before, "I will take the Ubroran Rangers that I talked to Colonel Jeffs about, and we will use the natural wilderness as our cover. From there I will cause as much havoc as one Jedi and a squad of commandos can do. We will be the hunters and the droids will be our prey."

"I don't think I can add anything to that," she said, still a little put off by the Rishati's emotional display.

Tiplee sighed deeply, "When we started this morning, I had nothing on my mind but finishing up the last details of this treaty, now I'm in a war. It's…a little difficult to comprehend."

"I know exactly what you mean," she responded.

The Jedi Knights paused for a long moment, taking in the enormity of the moment before refocusing themselves on their tasks. "I suppose we should contact the Padawans, so that they can get to Bontha ahead of the droids," said Tiplee.

"I think we should do it in here so that no one knows where they are going," Aurine added.

"Paranoid already?"

"I'm merely trying to protect our most valuable assets."

Aurine keyed her comlink, and dialed her Padawan, like clockwork, he answered immediately, "Yes, Master?"

"Padawan I have orders for you, is Nara with you?"

"I'm here, Master Brynar," said Nara

She took a deep breath and spent a cursory moment trying to find any alternative for what they had decided that the Padawans should do. None came. "We want you to go to Bontha and form a resistance. You won't get any formal support from the Ubroran army, so raise a resistance that is self-sufficient. Make sure you tie up as many opposition resources as possible, but do not let the city fall."

Sascha's voice quavered through the comlink, "What are the rules of engagement?"

"Standard. Act as Jedi, Padawans. Do not harm civilians and do _not_ push the envelope. I don't want either of you dabbling in the dark side."

"Understood, Masters, we shall do our best," Sascha said solemnly.

"What he said," Nara chimed in.

"May the Force be with you," she and Tiplee said in unison.

Sascha and Nara replied equally in unison, "And with you, Masters." The line went dead and half a planet away, she could feel Sascha's resolve harden as they accepted their new challenge. And in that moment, she got the feeling that she wouldn't be seeing her Padawan for a long time.


	25. Chapter 25: Producing a Victory

**Lord Darth Yoda** \- Yeah Aurine spends way too much time worrying about SaschaxNara. It's especially easy for us to see that because we've had both a Nara and Sascha chapter where they express the fact that they aren't all that attracted to each other (and they are being honest). Sascha and Tyra had a complicated history. Nara and Sascha don't. Not doing much time skipping in this book, you'll actually be able to see how many days have passed since the invasion has begun by reading the opening quote.

 **Speechbubbleme** \- Aurine's the Jedi with the plan, now we'll have to see it play out. Thanks for the review, as always :).

A/N - Playing around a lot more with PoV's in this fic - in fact we'll see a new one in this chapter. We still have two more PoV characters to come, as well. One of them will be Tiplee in the next chapter, and another will be...yeah I'm not going to spoil that one. But despite the PoV shifts, I'll try hard to keep the focus on our main characters.

Anyways, all reviews, follows, and favourites are deeply appreciated as always.

Enjoy the next chapter

* * *

 **Chapter 26: Producing a Victory  
**

" _Everything seems to be progressing on schedule, despite the strong resistance that the Ubroran Starfighters gave us. I've set up my troops in a solid perimeter and sent out a squad of droids along with an administrator to each city on Ubrora_. _There has been no opposition so far. Hopefully it will stay that way."_

-From the Journal of Pravin Ecalt, two days into of the Invasion of Ubrora

* * *

Arslan Ivalice twirled pensively in his chair in the control room of UNN, Ubrora's number one news network. He brought himself to a stop and perused the screens in front of him, evaluating each of them based on a hundred different factors, searching for the information he needed. He thought of himself as an artist of sorts, which is an odd thing for a news producer to believe, but he knows that there is a certain art to the way the news is cut and crafted so that the average person at home can understand it. When it's a live event like this, skilled producers like him drive the narrative as much as the action itself.

Truth be told, Arslan lived for this, the tightly controlled chaos of the newsroom during a crisis, where he was receiving a hundred different reports, analyzing a thousand different broadcasts and determining which ones needed to be seen by the viewers at home. He just wished that this particular crisis was something a little…tamer. Something like a fire at an abandoned power plant, or a farmer's livestock causing a traffic snarl, not a planetary invasion.

Still, it was his job to produce Ubrora's number one news broadcast for UNN and that's what he would do until someone told him to stop. Some wags on planet had opined that with the prevalence of personal broadcasting over the last few years that there wouldn't be the need for news programs like his, that Ubrorans would simply absorb the news from other sources. That was of course, patently ridiculous. People were busy, but they still cared about their planet, and if a broadcast could give them the most important news stories of the day in a half an hour, they were going to tune in.

And tuning in they were. Especially today. With Murgo Boikana, the mayor of Bontha, telling his citizens that they should stay at home and let the emissary of the invading army and their escort march unopposed to the capital building, the ratings for his program were off the charts. Advertisers were furiously ringing the station from their homes, trying to get their advertisements shown on the highest rated program in all of Ubrora's history. Arslan didn't worry about that. He never focused on the commercial side of broadcasting, only on the journalistic side of it. That was a job for someone else.

Arslan's path to UNN had been a straightforward one, he had always wanted to be a reporter, and he worked hard to get here. When he was a youngling, he used to interview his toys, creating a mock news broadcast, 'the news from toytown.' When he got older, he would interview his friends, parents and teachers who would indulge him for a time...until they grew tired of answering his questions. His idol growing up had been Hooby Saib, the most trusted name in news and he had watched every broadcast of his that he could find.

His big break had come when he had happened to be outside of a school when one of it's generators exploded. Confusion and chaos had reigned supreme, but Arslan Ivalice, with his camera broadcasting to the world, had quickly brought updates to the people at home. His personal broadcast that day had been watched by almost half a million Ubrorans, as he interviewed teachers, students and firefighters. He found the stories of heroism, of loss, and of incompetence. And when he interviewed the principal of the school who had made his escape before making sure that he had done everything he could to save his charges, it had been his outraged questions that all of Ubrora had been listening to.

From there his star had risen to the point where after he was finished school he had job offers from every major news network. He had picked UNN, not only because it was number one news network, but because Hooby Saib had recently become the President of the network, and he wanted nothing more than to work with his idol.

He snorted out loud, causing a few of his co-workers to look over in confusion. He ignored them. As president of UNN it should have been Hooby Saib personally overseeing this broadcast, not him. His former idol had decided that he had pressing business to take care of and had left Bontha without so much as informing anyone. It was hard to think of his idol as a coward, but it was pretty clear to Arslan that he was. Perhaps the old legend had simply lost his nerve. This morning, when he had received the call to come in to the station, he had been extraordinarily confused, UNN had many more senior producers than him, and this was the newsday of a lifetime. After it was explained to him that his more senior producers had decided to stay at home, he had raced to the station, and was glad that he had. No matter the situation, he would always do his best to bring the people of Ubrora the news broadcast they deserved.

It had also given him an opportunity to meet the Jedi.

He had been trying to get up to speed on the status of the invasion, when the two youngest of the four Jedi had sauntered into the station, looking unconcerned that they were in the middle of a city that was about to be conquered. They had politely asked the secretary at the front desk to direct them to whomever was in charge, and they had been sent to him, as he was currently the most senior staff member in the studio.

The four Jedi from the moment that they landed had become instant celebrities. There had been something…different about them, something larger than life, something that set them apart from even the usual menagerie of aliens that helped transport the monthly shipments of Thys roots. That had been the perception even before they showed that they could move objects with their mind, and fight with their laser swords like they were the most graceful of dancers. Now they were perceived to be almost like gods, and some had even gone so far as to say that they were here to protect Ubrora in its hour of need. As a journalist trained to report only the facts, Arslan Ivalice could not make that particular leap of faith, but he was certainly glad that they were here right now.

He had been alone in his tiny office, when he got his first good look at the two offworlders. The female, Nara, was striking to see in person, and so very alien with her hollow horns and head-tails. Her colouring, all purples and dark reds with white highlights on her face were something out of a monster movie, even though she was not all that tall or imposing. The male, Sascha, seemed much plainer, whether that was because he was a human and even he had seen many of those, or that he was unremarkable looking he didn't have the experience to say.

After exchanging pleasantries, the Jedi had gotten right to the point, "We need weapons," commented the female, Nara.

"I thought you had your laser swords," he replied.

"We need something a…little more long range than that. A sniper rifle, a hunting rifle, anything at all. We are going to give the droids coming your way a bit of a surprise," said Sascha.

"I'm just a news producer, I don't know where to get weapons like those!"

"We know that," Nara said calmly, "But you _can_ broadcast that we Jedi are looking for such weapons, and you can tell anyone who is willing to donate such weapons where to meet us."

He scratched his chin in a nervous gesture, "I…could, but did you not hear that the mayor told everyone to stay home?"

"So this is your home Arslan?" asked Sascha.

"It…basically is…technically," he stammered.

The human smiled, "It's okay Arslan, we aren't bound by what the mayor says, and neither should you."

The Togruta now smiled, showing teeth, "In fact, we are going to make it quite worth your while."

* * *

It hadn't taken long for the Jedi's request for long ranged weaponry to be fulfilled. Arslan himself had conducted a live interview with the two Jedi, who made a plea to anyone with a blaster rifle or hunting rifle to donate to them at the UNN studios and then watch the results at home in safety.

Arslan smiled to himself, he was sure that a massive amount of Ubrorans would now be tuning into UNN. Because only UNN had cameras on board, so to speak, with the Jedi. It had been the Jedi's own idea to have cameras attached to them, and Arslan had been only too happy to comply. It was, by any definition a massive coup for UNN, for now they alone had cameras on the two Jedi, and none of their competitors could match them. To his delight, UNN was trouncing every other news network on planet in the ratings, and the amount of live viewers was reaching record highs.

Now, he watched on his viewscreen as the two Jedi set up their ambush from the rooftop of one of Bontha's outlying warehouses. Both young Jedi were taking their time to get familiar with the ancient, but deadly hunting rifles that a pair of hunters had delivered to the UNN office. The two Jedi had thanked the hunters, asked for operating instructions and then promised that they would return their weapons to them by the end of the day.

"You sure it was a good idea to attach those expensive cameras to a pair of beings that will soon be dead?" opined Eakay Beckhorn.

Arslan tried to conceal a look of distaste. Eakay was one of the best auditory technicians he had ever seen operate, but the man was a hardened cynic at the best of times. "You saw how they fought at the banquet, they might be able to handle the droids," he said as much for himself as for the other reporters and technicians in the room.

"They are going to destroy an entire squad of droids? With their laser swords? The droids will blast them before they even get within range," Eakay said derisively.

"That is what the hunting rifles are for," he reminded his colleague. Truth be told, the laser swords carried by the Jedi did strike him as weapons that were somewhat impractical. How could you ever get to use one when you were confronted by an enemy with a blaster? Ubrorans had fought with similar swords...thousands of years ago, and there was a reason that those blades had gone out of fashion. Ranged weaponry ruled all.

"Whatever," waved Eakay dismissively, "None of this is going to matter after our new glorious leader Vash Varless takes over. Then we'll be reporting the news as he sees it…not that it's stopping EUN from doing that already."

Arslan suppressed a sigh, "What our rivals are doing is not our concern at the moment Eakay."

"Okay, but do you want me to get started on the memorial package that we'll roll over the Jedi die?"

"They aren't dead yet," he insisted, "and if I didn't know any better, it seems like you want them to fail."

Nettled, Eakay settled back into his chair, and turned his attention back to his workstation.

Concealing a smirk, he used his communicator to contact the two Jedi. Sascha answered, "Do you have news for us, Arslan?"

"We've spotted the droids making their way into the city, they should pass right by your position in a few minutes. How you knew what road they would use is beyond me, but I'm glad you did."

"The Force sometimes provides us with the answers we need," Sascha said solemnly.

"The Force and your cameras," Nara added.

"I hope the Force is with you, then," he muttered.

"It usually is," said the slightly muffled voice of Nara.

Arslan wondered what Nara meant by the Force being with them but ignored that for the moment, "Okay, if you would turn on your cameras I'll make sure that Ubrora sees what happens to those droids."

"We'll give you a good show Arslan, we promise," replied Nara.

The Jedi ended the call, immediately afterward, and almost instantaneously, the cameras on the Jedi showed up on his screen. Soon after that the other cameras that the Jedi had laid in the surrounding area of the rooftop that they were waiting on came online as well. He would have a great choice of angles from which he could watch the upcoming fight, he just hoped that the Jedi would come through in the end. At least they seemed confident. Maybe the Jedi did stuff like this all the time.

He took control of the newsroom, _his_ newsroom. He stood from his chair for a moment and rapped his paw against his desk. The noise garnered the attention of everyone in the room. "Okay, I know this is a momentous occasion, but we simply produce the news. Let's do our jobs."

His staff looked at him oddly for a moment and then went back to work. Arslan sighed, that was supposed to have been an inspirational speech. It appeared that no one was inspired though. He put his head down and went to work, using his paw to select a view of the approaching battle droids, marching in pairs of two that surrounded a small transport that appeared to have only one occupant, an ugly looking alien in rich garments. Row upon row of droids…maybe sixty in total. The spindly built beige battle droids were legitimate killing machines, and there was only two Jedi with hunting rifles that opposed them. Quickly, the experienced anchor working to his left described them for those at home, adding an almost unnecessary layer of dramatic tension.

The enemy established to the viewers at home, Arslan switched the view to a camera that was set behind the two Jedi as they lay prone on their chosen rooftop. They had used their brown cloaks to provide them some with camouflage, but it was easy to tell which Jedi was which, only one of them had horns atop their head.

The two Jedi chatted idly back and forth, their discussion picked up by the speakers embedded in the camera, "Leave the Neimoidian, Nara."

"Given their species quote, unquote, bravery, I'm sure our Neimoidian friend will dive for cover the second shots rip out," the Togruta replied sarcastically.

"Have you ever fired something like this Nara?" asked Sascha.

"Nope, haven't even fired a blaster once, I'm a lightsaber only type of girl," the Togruta replied lightly.

Suddenly, the Jedi quieted, their manner professional, adjusting the scopes on their hunting rifles and they eased the barrels of the weapons on to the overhang of the roof. "Droids coming in range," said Nara, her voice betraying a slight thrill of excitement.

In range? They were merely specks on the horizon to him. No one could hit a target from that far away...could they? "What's the world record for longest sniper kill?" he asked.

"I think it's around two kilometers," came a response.

"And how far away are the droids?"

"About a kilometer and a bit, based on our triangulation."

"And what distance are those hunting rifles rated for?"

Someone snorted derisively, "Five hundred meters, if that. No one needs that much distance to bull's eye a Yuna Cat."

"Switch to a first-person shot," he commanded.

Suddenly, the picture on the screen turned to the perspective of Sascha Whitestar, and it seemed like Arslan was staring down the barrel of the rifle himself (the camera was on his shoulder). "With these shots, we bring Ubrora closer to freedom," said Sascha quietly. The two Jedi fired, at what to him seemed like a speck of dust in the distance. In the half-second it took for the laser bolt to traverse the distance, there was a sense of despair in the newsroom. Bontha's last defenders were a pair of teenagers, who were clearly not capable. How could they expect to do anything at such a range?

Then, they saw two droids crumple headless to the ground.

Someone in the newsroom dropped a datapad, and the anchor that had been narrating the whole event went dead silent.

Two headshots.

From a kilometer away.

Suddenly, Arslan had a good feeling about these Jedi apprentices and their complete confidence began to make a little sense. Silently, the two Jedi reset their weapons and fired again. Two more droids dropped, though these shots weren't headshots. It was almost disappointing to see. Again, the Jedi fired completely in unison with the other, and again two more droids dropped. Someone in the newsroom let out a loud 'whoop!' of excitement.

He was embarrassed to find out that it had been him.

The droids picked up their pace, jogging alongside the transport, the alien that had been piloting it was no longer in evidence, Arslan assumed that he or she had dove for cover. The fire from the two apprentices was impressively accurate, it took to the fifth volley for either Jedi to miss.

"Hah, you lose," crowed Nara as she fired off another shot.

"I missed intentionally," claimed Sascha. "I wanted to scare them."

"They are droids, dummy, they don't scare!"

The terrifying thing was that despite the Jedi thinning their numbers one or two at a time, the droids kept coming, and soon enough they entered firing range. As one, the droids raised the matte black blaster rifles that they carried and fired towards where the Jedi's shots were coming from. "Street angle," he commanded, almost too distracted by the enthralling battle to continue producing the broadcast.

The view changed to an angle that saw the droids marching towards the camera, the Jedi firing from overhead, the only thing that the camera could see of the two Jedi were the pair of rifle muzzles that were perched on the ledge above the roof.

The incoming red laser bolts from the droids didn't seem to deter the Jedi at all, they simply kept up their rate of fire even as the bolts dug into the abandoned warehouse that they were currently occupying. Arslan had stopped using his rational mind to try to figure out what the Jedi were doing and appreciated their all-out commitment to their task. They had said they were going to get rid of the droids, and they were.

Eventually though, whatever targeting computer the droids had been installed with allowed them to fire more accurately and the two Padawans had to pull back from their rapidly disintegrating cover. "Switch to Nara's camera," he commanded, and suddenly he was staring at Sascha Whitestar as he inspected a small burn on his forearm.

"That last bolt came so close it actually burned me," he said incredulously, as if it was impossible that a blaster bolt could hit him.

Nara peered over the edge of the rooftop and towards the droids, "Well they are still coming, I say we get revenge for that burn they gave you." Sascha smiled at her, his brown eyes lighting up at the idea of taking it to the enemy.

"Are they insane?" asked Eakay, "They've done a good job at whittling down their numbers, I'll admit that, but there are still like twenty battle droids out there. They should retreat and find another ambush point."

Arslan was no tactician but that did sound like sound advice, he actually half thought that he should use his communicator and try to tell the Jedi as much. "If you have the camera on us Arslan, you might need to switch to a wide angled shot to see what comes next," remarked Nara.

"What comes next?" asked a voice he didn't recognize from inside the newsroom.

He had his suspicions, but was afraid to vocalize them, instead he said, "Use the view from their roof, the one that angles down." His eyes just had enough time to adjust to the new view before he saw the Jedi ignite their blades and drop to the ground just in front of the droids.

"What are they doing?" shouted someone nearby. More than twenty battle droids awaited the two young apprentices and, and they opened fire on them immediately in a torrent of red light.

The two apprentices raced forward, dodging and… _deflecting_ the incoming fire, almost as if they knew it was coming. The entire studio was completely silent, completely in awe of what they were watching as the two apprentices launched themselves into the battle droid formation.

He had seen things today that he thought were impossible, but watching the Jedi dance around their opponents, and dismantling the battle droids with their laser swords was by far the most impossible. The Jedi apprentices were always in motion, taking every opening given to them, always moving to cover the other at the same time. But the most amazing thing was watching them deflect fire that came in at point blank range, and deflect it in such a way that it didn't hit their partner, but deflected back at their opponents. If he hadn't seen it with a camera that he himself had inspected, he would not have believed it. Even Ubroran action movies behaved more realistically than this.

Before long, the droids were a smoking heap on the ground and the two apprentices were unharmed. "Get me a first-person view," he commanded. He was soon obliged and now he was looking from the perspective of Sascha Whitestar as he examined the robe of his friend, "Looks like you got singed there a bit," he said.

"I wouldn't have gotten singed if _someone_ had blocked for me," she responded, pulling her arm away.

"I knew it was going wide," replied Sascha.

"Sure," said the Togruta, rolling her blue eyes dramatically, "You just wanted to be even, you got a burn so I had to have a near miss too."

"What can I say, you know me well, Nara."

In the studio there was some chuckles as his fellow co-workers enjoyed the back and forth between the two friends. On his screen, Arslan watched as the two Jedi sauntered over to where the transport had come to a halt. With an effortless jump, they bounded into the passenger side of the transport, and peered down at the ugly alien that he assumed was a 'Neimoidian.'

Still watching from Sascha's perspective, the young Jedi knelt over the alien, "Do you know who we are?" the human asked.

"J-J-J-Jedi!" stammered the Neimoidian.

"Didn't know there was that many 'J's' in Jedi," Nara observed wryly.

"That's right Neimoidian, we are Jedi," said Sascha calmly.

"What do you want from me?"

The two Jedi smiled, appearing almost sinister for the first time, "I want you to go back to whoever your commander is and tell him that Bontha is under the protection of the Jedi Order," said Sascha.

"Yeah," said Nara, crossing her arms in front of her chest, "And if he wants to capture the city, he's going to have to send a _lot_ more droids. Droids that we will have fun dissembling."

Sascha made a shooing gesture, "Run along now."

The two Jedi jumped down from the transport and after a moment the transport sped out of the city, quite possibly breaking every traffic rule in existence. Fortunately with the streets empty, no one was harmed.

The two Jedi then spoke, not to each other, but to one of the cameras they had previous set up, without needing to be told, the picture on his screen switched so that he could see both young Jedi staring intently at him. "What we said to that Neimoidian, we meant. We are going to stay in Bontha and we will fight for your city," said Nara. "I know that Ubrorans are a peaceful people, but if you want to keep your world free, join us, fight with us. Bontha will only fall if you let it fall. This, we promise you."

The two Jedi turned and started picking up the blaster rifles from the fallen droids. Ignoring that, Arslan stood and started towards the exit. "Arslan…where are you going? asked Eakay.

"We can't just let a pair of teenagers fight and die for our planet," he replied, "it's on us, it's on all of us to keep our city free."

"But you're a producer! You're important! You don't need to do this," he countered, "We have an army for these things."

"If our planet isn't free, I'm not free. I can't live like that. Maybe you can."

Eakay shook his head, "Do what you want Arslan, you've always thought that you're a hero. You are just a producer."

Arlan's shoulders slumped. "You are right. I'm not a hero. No, I'm going to start being a hero, today, by joining the resistance."

"The romantic fools always die first," warned Eakay.

Arslan laughed, a bitter chuckle, "I'd rather be dead than a cynic like you Eakay." He walked out the door, aware that he had just walked away from the job he had worked his whole life to achieve, but knowing deep in his heart that his decision was the correct one. He could always find another job. He could never get another homeworld.


	26. Chapter 26: Prowl

**Lord Darth Yoda** \- The Phantom Menace feels is *very* intentional. And don't worry, our opposition isn't the greatest but they aren't incompetent...well...mostly not incompetant. They have huge numbers and they aren't afraid to use them.

 **Speechbubbleme** \- Thanks! It kind of helps that I'm prone to joking like Sascha does, so I kind of have experience in writing jokey, playful dialog.

 **Bodare2** \- Yeah, its fun to play around with perspectives, especially when dealing with a culture that hasn't seen much of the Jedi. I like the comparison with the winter war - I wonder if Aurine can be the Jedi version of the great General Mannheim.

A/N - We get a bit of Tiplee in this chapter. She won't be as common a PoV character, but its nice flesh out her character as well. I also had fun writing a character that is a bit more powerful - as we know, Tiplee does become a Jedi Master, so she's pretty strong in the Force.

Anyways, all reviews, follows, and favourites are deeply appreciated as always.

Please enjoy the next chapter

* * *

 **Chapter 26: Prowl**

" _I've just received the first visual of the force that has been raiding our left flank as we attempt to march to our next objective. As expected there were a number of Ubrorans in camouflage gear, equipped with blaster rifles, but that is something I could deal with. I cannot deal with what they are being led by. I'm not sure if she is a demon or a Jedi Knight. I don't know if our invasion may have pushed her over the edge of sanity. All I know is that she is the most terrifying thing I have seen."_

-From the Journal of Pravin Ecalt, Four days in to the Invasion of Ubrora

* * *

Jedi Knight Tiplee knelt and scooped up some dirt from the ground. The dirt here was solid, packed thick, and thus perfect for fast travel. Satisfied, she looked up and surveyed her surroundings. The hardest thing about hunting in an unfamiliar place such as this was getting used to how it operated. In nature, there was a chain of command, a natural order of things, and nowhere was this truer than in a forest. But finding out what the natural order was in a new environment was difficult, she knew. It didn't come easy, even to those who used the Force. Sure, if you were about to step on a poisonous thistle-plant, the danger sense of a Jedi Knight would flare, but if you were about to step into the territory of a Crosabarv, one of the few dangerous predators on this planet, there was no Jedi sense for _that_.

Still, now she was used to the rhythms of this forest, now the forest was like second nature to her. It had been four days since the invasion started and three since she had taken command of the Ubroran Rangers.

Three days since her hunt began.

When she had been a youngling in the Jedi Temple, it had taken the Masters long years to rid her of the typical traits of a Rishati. Native to Darw IV, legend had it that Rishati were related to the Sith, not the dark-side users, but the Sith species, a red-skinned humanoid species that had become synonymous with the dark side cult over the years. Darw IV was a temperate world, covered with forests, and inhabited by an array of predators of every size and description. Some scientists said that the planet was as much a testament to the phrase 'survival of the fittest' as any planet in the known galaxy. Off-world visitors to Darw IV were often jokingly referred to as 'lunch' and if they went into the forests without being prepared and accompanied by skilled guides, they often became just that. Darw IV might have become civilized, but there was no taming the wildlife of the planet.

The Rishati, her species, had evolved and thrived in these harshest of conditions, producing a huge amount of difference in appearance across her species; she even looked nothing like her twin sister Tiplar, even though they were genetically almost identical. What united Rishati as a species was that they all had access to outstanding physical senses, amongst the most sensitive of any species in the galaxy. The truth was, as medium-sized pack hunters, Rishati needed such senses just to survive on Darw IV.

But those senses came at a cost. When they needed to be used to their fullest extent, like on a hunt, the conscious brain as such almost stopped working, as the lower brain function took over control. On a hunt, a Rishati was merciless, every part of his or her brain drawn to only one thing, a successful hunt. At their most desperate, a Rishati could almost be considered feral. She and her sister had been successfully deprogrammed from their genetic heritage as younglings, but it was a part of her psyche that never went away, never completely faded, and she could tap into what made Rishati like her such dangerous predators for a time, remaining completely in control, but still gaining the advantage of her vastly heightened senses. It took its own toll on her, but right now she needed every advantage she could get.

Her heritage was one reason that she had felt drawn to Nara and why she had picked her to be her apprentice. Nara was a fellow predator and although Togruta and Rishati were very different species, they were both pack hunters with strong physical senses. There were times when Nara had felt like a fellow pack mate, especially when they had been assigned to track down a bounty hunter wanted on several charges on Devaron. It was the closest that she had ever gotten to going hunting as a Jedi and she knew that she and Nara had both enjoyed the camaraderie. She would have preferred to have been hunting today with Nara, but she agreed with Aurine that the Padawans' talents were best used elsewhere. At least the Ubroran commandos were an acceptable alternative.

Though she had been wary of bringing along the Ubroran Rangers at first, lest they not be found to be not up to the task, they had turned out to be as good as Colonel Jeffs had advertised. And, she admitted to herself, she had needed some native guides. Now three days into their hunt and having only lost one soldier, she was beginning to see herself as the leader of this 'pack.'

And it was time again to hunt.

Still kneeling, Tiplee concentrated and found that part of herself that was drawn to the hunt, that part of herself where her instincts were sharpest, her fighting skills the most refined. Instinctively she tapped into the Force, and it doesn't take long to find where her prey is.

Because she is hunting droids, she doesn't sense them as such, but what she does sense is the absence of wildlife. Knowing that the only thing that would drive away everything from the tiniest of birds to the deadliest of hunters was a loud, incoming army, she set off in the direction of the emptiness.

Having been around her enough long enough to know that all they had to do was to just follow her without question, the squad of Ubroran Rangers do their best to keep up with the fleet footed Jedi. They know that they cannot keep up with her totally, but it is a matter of professional pride that she not distance them by too much. She salves their ego by not quite moving at her full speed, after all, she doesn't want to outrun her support. Even the best hunters need a pack.

Moving quickly through the forest, avoiding the roots and vines without even so much as glancing at them, she bounds off the dead husk of a fallen tree and vaulted high into the air. Using the Force to amplify her movement, she somersaults mid-air and landed high on a sturdy tree branch, from which she settles herself so she can see her prey.

Using the acute senses of her species where most others would have to use macrobinoculars, she can see the detachment of droids that is moving in to the nearby town. The town appears to be a sleepy farming village, there probably isn't more than a couple thousand Ubrorans scattered amongst the various houses that she sees. The architecture of the village is quaint, colourful, and she gets the impression this town has looked this way for hundreds of years. She won't let the droids change that.

Like a dancer, she drops from the tree, bending her knees deeply to absorb the impact. Immediately she has blasters pointed at her from every direction, but none fire. Lieutenant Dev holds a hand out to signal the squad to stand down, "You have to stop doing that General Tiplee, one of these days one of the boys is going to get a twitch and blast you."

"If it has not happened yet, it will not happen at all," she replied confidently. Though she nodded, "I will be more careful to warn you, next time."

The Ubroran shrugged, the older Lieutenant had seen more action this week than the rest of his career, but he had adapted well to his changed circumstances. He was a good man though, solid and reliable with good instincts. Tiplee was glad to have him by her side.

"Lieutenant, you and your squad should…"

"…Provide cover," replied the Lieutenant, hefting his blaster rifle, "Of course, Master Tiplee."

She grinned, her pack were already on the same page. Now it was time for her to unleash the predator inside of her.

She became the wild, became the hunter, yet she remained a Jedi. She knew from experience how fearsome she could look when she embraced her heritage like this, and now with her beige and brown robe smeared with some of the foliage of the forest, she knows that she probably looked like something out of a nightmare. It's completely lost on the droids of course, but she bets that it isn't lost on whoever is commanding the droids. If she can make herself and her tiny squad of commandos seem larger, more important than they are, she allows Aurine more time to train up a real army to fight, she gives her Padawan more time to harden the resistance of the captured cities. On some level it offends her that she has become bait, a distraction, but rationally she knows that she is merely doing what needs to be done. She is a Jedi and she has never shirked from her responsibility.

Tiplee sprinted towards the town, her lightsaber already in her hand, but unlit. She emerged from the brush at full speed, entering the outskirts at the same time as the droids enter from a nearby roadway. Her squad follows behind, using the available cover, but she raced heedlessly forward. If she draws the attention of the droids in this sector they will all converge on her, which will allow her squad, her pack to take up good positions which to flank the droids with. She may have been playing the role of bait, but her squad were to be her teeth.

Tiplee took cover around a corner and waited for the approach of the droid army. There were no Ubrorans in evidence, but Tiplee could feel them in the Force, silent, afraid. The droids themselves were not much of an obstacle individually, but much like a pack, they had strength in numbers. And their numbers were larger her and her squad. But Tiplee was confident. She was the alpha hunter around here.

Like any good pack, the Ubroran Rangers took up positions around her, trusting that she had found the prey that they were looking for. Several vaulted up onto the rooftops surrounding her, and she nodded in approval – getting the high ground was important in any battle. The Ubroran troops had started out very green, very inexperienced, but they were learning quickly – that was one advantage of a flesh and blood soldier over a droid – they learned. A droid was only ever as good as its programming, a real live solider would learn and get better over time – adapting to their enemies.

She waited until the entire squad was in position before taking action. There was no way to signal to her pack, so she does what any good leader does, she jumped into the fray herself, surprising the droids as she drives her lightsaber through the torso of the first one that she sees. Droids don't shock and they especially don't break, they just open fire when they find a target and that was what they all do right now. Unfortunately for them, as she is currently in the middle of their formation, their targeting computers wouldn't let them fire if they would hit another battle droid, so she could use them as a sort of cover as she whirled her lightsaber around to block the incoming blaster bolts. Tiplee was blazing fast as she dropped deep into the Force, keeping her lightsaber in the exact spot that it needed to be.

Not all incoming fire was from the droids though. The Ubroran Rangers opened up on the battle droid formation, keeping well in cover as they did. They knew by now not to worry about hitting her with their shots, just fire as if she wasn't there at all. Where the incoming fire was coming from didn't bother Tiplee, she just deflected it. And when she could get a respite, she attacked.

She jammed her lightsaber through the head of one droid, the lightsaber cleaves down it's frame, meeting little resistance, almost cutting the beige droid in two. Then she whirled he blade defensively back into a position close to her, parrying incoming fire, from the droids, or her pack, she cannot tell. Nor does it matter, as eventually she deflects a pair of bolts into two more droids causing them to smoke and collapse as their bodies can no longer respond to their processors.

Tiplee, though she is barely conscious of it, notes that the intensity of the incoming fire is dwindling, courtesy, no doubt, of the ambush that she had just led. Then, without warning, the incoming fire intensifies again. She heard a shout from one of the Ubroran soldiers, "Reinforcements coming in from the left!"

That's bad, thought Tiplee, as she finished carving the head off one unfortunate droid, but without a blaster she had to deal with these enemies before she could help with the new enemies that threatened them.

Reaching deeply into the Force she grabbed one of the fallen droids and hurled it at the largest remaining cluster of droids. The droids comically exclaim in surprise, and for a half second she wondered who would program a battle droid with such an odd personality. A half second after that she is carving those droids into scrap and the question disappears from her mind. She now has to turn to her suddenly beleaguered squad. At last she sees why her pack seems so desperate. They are facing an alpha predator of their own.

The enemy has a droideka.

The droideka is an insect-like droid, if an insect happened to be six feet tall, armored and armed with powerful laser emitters. But the droideka is a powerful enemy for more than its armament, it's the shield generator that renders it impervious to small arms fire that gives the droideka the well-earned nickname 'Destroyer.' At the moment, the insect-like droid had it's shield generator at full power, and the blue shield was easily deflecting the incoming blaster fire from her pack, while returning some of its own. Powerful laser blasts from the droideka chipped away at the cover that her pack was hiding behind, and more than one soldier was forced to hastily relocate.

As she polished off the last of the battle droids from the first group, she racks her mind for a plan to deal with the droideka. Her lightsaber would be useless, as the droideka's shield will stop her weapon from getting to the droid underneath the armor, but even without a lightsaber she was not without weapons. Tiplee closed her eyes, pushing past her fatigue to drop deeply into the Force. Picturing the droideka in her mind, she lifte the droideka off the ground and starts slamming it into the nearby wall.

The shield generator of the droid prevents the wall from doing damage to the droid inside, but Tiplee can almost feel the power that it has to draw from its batteries to keep it from being unceremoniously flattened. Her mouth dry and feeling faint, she holds on to the Force and the droideka with sheer force of will, knowing this will be the only chance she will get to defeat the droideka. She swung the droid towards the wall again. And then again.

After the third impact, the shield generator shorts out, the strain of trying to protect the droid within is just too much. The shield generator overloaded and now without protection, the droid impacts with the wall, and its armored frame shatters. As does the wall, crumbling all around the droid. The droideka emits a wounded, electronic cry, before collapsing totally.

Shield _that_ , she thought silently.

For good measure, she walks up to the smoking husk of the droideka and drives her lightsaber right through it. Asserting her dominance, one alpha hunter to another. Then she beat her chest and titled her head back and howled. A warning to anyone else that would try to stand between her and her prey.

As Tiplee returns to full awareness of herself, she becomes aware that she had been hurt and that there is a pretty deep cut just above her left wrist. The funny thing was (not really funny) that she actually couldn't remember how she had gotten that particular wound. As she knew well, when she put all of herself into a hunt, things like pain didn't even seem to matter to her. But now the hunt was over, and that wound on her wrist _stung_.

Withdrawing a pressure patch from one of her belt pockets, she measured up and cuts off a patch that is correct size and placed it over the wound, wincing as she touches the affected area. At least it's her off hand, she thinks. Still, she is accumulating a number of nicks and bruises that will eventually slow her down enough that she will be vulnerable. The Jedi Knight purged that uncomfortable thought from her psyche.

The Ubroran Rangers hustle over to her, forming up around her. She points at two of the soldiers, "Make sure that those were the last of the droids." The two Ubrorans hustle off quickly.

It isn't long before the townspeople emerge from their homes to thank their heroes. Tiplee generally shies away from any sort of spotlight. Lieutenant Dev accepts the praise from the villagers as Tiplee looks around, appauled at the damage that short battle has done to the village. Scorch marks mar the colourful buildings of the town, and the wall that she had unceremoniously knocked down sticks out like a sore thumb. This town had been beautiful, twenty minutes ago. Now...it was in need of repairs.

Tiplee thought about talking to the townspeople an apologizing for what she had done, but she didn't want to keep in one place for too long, lest she be caught unawares by the droids. She waits until the two soldiers that she dispatched returned with word that there were no droids in evidence. Then she gathers up her troops and laves. Some of the civilians in the town come out of their houses to offer their thanks to her and her squad. They can't afford to stay for too long, lest more reinforcements from the central army come in. Ubrorans with their tendency to broadcast each and every thing that happens in their day meant that if the enemy was monitoring these feeds, they could find where she and her squad had struck.

"Another successful raid, General Tiplee," said the Ubroran Lieutenant as they march back into the forest, slipping away from potential pursuit.

"Any casualties?"

"One."

She grimaced, her pack was weakening. Tiplee glanced up at the setting sun, "We will remember him tonight, then we will resume our hunt tomorrow."

The two walk back towards their base camp, "It's not working, is it General Tiplee? The droid army just keeps advancing, we can reduce their numbers like this, but we can't stop them taking our remaining cities."

She rubbed her forehead, clearing it of some grime, "They still have to have to go through the Napier valley before they can threaten Namya or Wingke, and I'm sure Master Brynar will extract every advantage she can." She stopped walking, forcing the Lieutenant to stop and look back at her, "We must play our part, that is what matters, Lieutenant. Each victory, as minor as it seems, may be the difference between victory and defeat."

"No offence, General, but I'd find a slightly more inspiring speech to give the rest of the troopers. We all have families that we'd like to return to one day." He hesitated, clearly intimidated by her, "we know you are a Jedi, and you are far and above us in terms of fighting ability, but it would help not to be so aloof, to communicate with us. All you seem to do is fight and meditate, it makes you seem impervious to the real hardships we are going through."

Instantly, she felt guilty. She had not thought that such elite troops would be in need of such pep talks, but she realized that she had not been connecting with her pack. She was treating them like she was the Alpha and they were merely Betas. That was not how she hunted best. "I am not impervious, I bleed, I feel, I can die. If I had the power, I would keep each and every one of you alive. You Ubroran rangers, you are my pack, and every wound and death we take is remembered." She paused, "Jedi do not take revenge, so I cannot say that I will avenge their deaths, what I can promise is that each of their sacrifices means something. I'll do that even if I have to cut through the entire droid army by myself."

The Lieutenant thought over that speech soberly, his head bowed in reflection. He eventually looked up, "I think that is the speech you should deliver tonight, General Tiplee."


	27. Chapter 27: Resistance, Part One

**Lord Darth Yoda** \- Yeah the Jedi always do see themselves as 'above' everyone else. It comes from wanting to protect people, and be guardians of the Republic, but it does often come off as arrogance. As far as the droideka...I don't think that combat was easy! Tiplee basically had to destroy a building (or part of it) to bring it down.

 **Speechbubbleme** \- Thanks! Tiplee only has 3 appearances in official canon, two clone wars episodes and a brief appearance in Darth Maul, Son of Dathomir. So basically everything about her is my creation. I think it feels sufficiently 'Starwarsy' though.

 **thejoker122** \- Thanks. Writing battle scenes is difficult, so I'm glad people are enjoying.

A/N - Sorry this chapter is a little short but if I combined this chapter and the next one it gets way too choppy. Still, it should be entertaining enough (I hope).

Anyways, all reviews, follows, and favourites are deeply appreciated as always.

Please enjoy the next chapter

* * *

 **Chapter 27: Resistance, Part One  
**

" _I want to meet whoever designed these useless battle droids and strangle them to death. While these droids are good as an army, they cannot be trusted to keep rebellion from fermenting. For one, when they are deployed in small numbers, they can easily be overwhelmed. For another, they have a difficult time of discerning whom their enemies are. Their processors appear to just be that slow.. Unless you are pointing and firing at a battle droid, it will see you as 'not a threat.'"_

" _I need sentient troopers that I can delegate the subjugation of these cities to. Admiral Varless doesn't see the point, but he's sitting safe in orbit. I told him that he could sell some of his droid fighters that failed to deliver air superiority to raise funds for some mercenaries. He didn't take that well_."

-From the Journal of Pravin Ecalt, Five days in to the Invasion of Ubrora

* * *

"So how do you think today went?" asked Nara.

He and Nara were cleaning up after they had staged an impromptu training session for the new resistance they were forming here in Bontha. It was threatening to rain, but the rain was holding off for now. Still, with the sun fading, it looked like it was about time to pack it in for the day. "It went…okay. I guess. I wasn't really sure what to expect," he said. "I have about as much practical experience at training people how to fight as you do, Nara."

"I was disappointed at how few Ubrorans showed up." Nara shook her head, "And then some of the ones that did show up were so young! I think one of them said that he was twelve."

"I applaud those younglings' desire to fight if not their good sense. It was the right thing to do to send them home." Sascha bent down and picked up a blaster that one of their resistance group had dropped, shaking his head. The fact that someone had just dropped a blaster and left it there without picking it up was indicative of the level of expertise that the Ubrorans had displayed when it came to firearms. He had half expected that someone would ask him which way to point the blaster. "I had hoped that the Ubrorans showed more ability when it came to fighting."

Nara grimaced, "Yeah, they aren't very good. The ones that wanted to fight probably joined the army already, so we just got the leftovers. But at least they have us."

That was true. During the training session he and Nara had almost been treated like gods. While he was used, somewhat, to getting deference from people far older than him, to be fawned over was something quite different. He and Nara had put an end to that. The Jedi had stressed that that they were going to be working with the Ubrorans and would be colleagues. It had taken the Ubrorans a few days, but at least some of the initial awkwardness had been phased out.

"Nara, we can't babysit them. They have to learn how to fight the droids on their own. We can't be everywhere. That's the key to forming an effective resistance. No one person or persons can be bigger than the whole thing."

Nara shook her head, "That doesn't feel right. We've given these Ubrorans the hope that we will fight with us, we can't just let them fight the droids on their own, you know what will happen. We treat the droids like temporary obstacles, because they are. But the droids will be pretty effective against half-trained 'insurgents' like we are training. I don't want to think that I'm training these Ubrorans just to be slaughtered."

He would have liked to disagree with Nara, but he too had watched the Ubrorans as he and Nara had drilled them. While they tended to be quick learners, the simple fact was that they had very little martial tradition to fall back on. Today they had to teach the Ubrorans simple things like learning to aim a blaster or how to take cover. Forget anything more advanced like small unit tactics or target selection, the Ubrorans were still in the 'learn the basics' stage. Sascha hoped that experience would be the best teacher for their allies.

Nara stood head down, shaking her head slowly, an expression of pure sadness on her face. He moved to her side quietly and put a soft hand at the small of her back, "Nara, we aren't forcing them to do anything. We are training volunteers and we aren't making them to do anything that they are uncomfortable with. Plus, the ones that were truly awful at fighting we've grouped into non-combat roles. We have to do the best that we can with this task. If there was any other way to do things, don't you think our Masters would have explored them? This is war. It's terrible, but it's the reality."

Nara considered his words for a while silently, and then she turned to him and smirked, "I always thought that I was brave. That was until a few days ago…how is it that you don't seem to fear anything? You jumped into that Starfighter without a second thought, you train these Ubrorans, heck you even make friends with them, even when you know that we are probably all doomed. I don't understand it. Aren't you scared?"

Sascha pulled Nara in close with a chaste embrace, "I'm beyond terrified," he admitted. "But…I know thanks to a conversation with a very wise Jedi, that I shouldn't ignore my feelings. Because I know what I fear, I also know how to deal with my feelings."

Nara pulled away and smiled clearly remembering who the 'very wise Jedi was,' "Huh, you think that wise Jedi should maybe listen to her own advice?"

"Possibly, but she's not very good at listening." Sascha ducked Nara's slow, playful punch, but was surprised when Nara stepped towards him. Thinking that she just wanted another hug, he opened his arms. Nara had other ideas. She took his extended arm and used it to throw him, softly, to the ground.

Coughing at the dust that his body had kicked up from its unceremonious deposit on the ground, he stared up at Nara with an indignant look on his face, "What was that for?"

Nara extended a hand, and he grabbed on to it, using the leverage to pull himself to his feet, "Sorry," she said, "Couldn't help myself. It's just so fun to throw you around."

"I think that maybe we should try to act a little more mature, now that we have the hopes of an entire city, an entire planet on our shoulders," he said sternly.

"I disagree." Nara paused, "I think if we stop acting like we would if we are alone in the Temple…we've already lost. So yeah, I'm going to keep being playful with you, because if we focus on how dire things are, we'll lose track of what we are fighting for, it's so that I can throw you around on the sparring mats in the Jedi Temple again."

"Did you ever think that I don't enjoy that as much as you do, Nara?"

Nara shoved him lightly, "Puh-lease, I can read your emotions, Whitestar. I know you enjoy our sparring matches, and at least when its unarmed combat, we are pretty even. Admit it; it's the most fun we ever get to have in the Temple."

"I dunno if I would say it's the _most_ fun, I enjoy my time researching in the archives as well."

"Okay, well you stay with the dusty holobooks, I'll keep training," Nara joked lightly.

Sascha punched Nara lightly, affectionately, on her arm in response. "Can I tell you the main reason I think that we might get through this?"

Nara nodded.

"It's that I get to do this with you."

"Don't get attached little human," Nara said lightly.

He rolled his eyes, "Don't flatter yourself Togruta. It's not like that Nara, but you know how well we fight together, how comfortable we are together. I wonder if maybe, just maybe that will be enough."

The Togruta smiled, "I think it might be enough too."

Sascha and Nara started walking back towards the heart of the city, their footsteps in perfect unison, "So, what did you think of Lirri Boikana joining us?" Nara asked.

"A pleasant surprise," he replied.

Lirri, who had been their tour guide for this very city what seemed like months ago, but was actually little over a week ago, had proved to be an excellent leader, and several of the young Ubrorans clearly looked up to her. Also, it seemed that she was a level above the other Ubrorans when it came to fighting, she was a reasonably good shot and actually seemed to understand tactics at some level, which was nice. They didn't have a ton of leadership options, so they had to hope that Lirri might be ready to become the leader of the whole resistance. However, it was one thing to be admired, it was another to lead troops into battle. They'd have to wait and see if she would be ready for such a thing.

"At least we have Arslan handling all the non-combat roles. He's a born organizer," he commented. Arslan Ivalice had been a pleasant surprise to see join their rag-tag group of resistance fighters. He hadn't been all that interested in learning how to fire a blaster rifle, but he had been interested in helping form a quasi-intelligence service, pointing out that by watching the myriad broadcasts of various Ubrorans, one may actually be able to monitor enemy movements. Arslan had been a sensible choice to put in command of all non-combat activities. He hoped that the older Ubroran would be up to the task.

"So what's next?" asked Nara.

"Next, we give the next wave of droids that are inevitably heading in our direction as we speak a very rude welcome to Bontha."

"And how do we do that?"

"We blow them up."

"The direct approach. I like it."

* * *

Sascha Whitestar tried to pull his cloak tighter around him, but even his well-worn cloak could not keep him from being soaked from head to toe by the insistent rain that had started this morning and not eased since. Though he had been on many planets in his career as a Jedi, he couldn't remember getting rained on like this, the rain was just torrential. Lirri had assured him it was just the way the weather worked on the planet, and that this was the 'rainy' season on Ubrora. At least the temperature was warm, otherwise he'd have needed to find a tailor to craft him some human sized rain gear appropriate to dealing with this rain.

As it was, he just endured. There was something to learn from that, he felt.

The two Jedi were surrounded by members of the resistance as they awaited the imminent arrival of the droid army in Bontha. From what they have gotten from Arslan's hastily formed intelligence team, they had been able to predict the probable path that the new detachment of droids that had been sent to occupy the city. He, Nara and Arslan had estimated enemy strength at greater than a thousand droids, though Sascha had noted with some amusement, the same transport that had carried that terrified Neimoidian that he and Nara had terrified was heading back this way as well.

"So is your dad mad that you joined our resistance force?" he asked Lirri. The mayor of Bontha had been fairly vocal in his displeasure at how he and Nara had treated Vash Varless' 'envoy' and his 'guards.' Why the elder Boikana was so friendly towards Vash Varless was anyone's guess.

"He'd be furious, if he knew," Lirri said offhandedly. "I assume he'll figure it out eventually. Don't worry, I'm a big girl, I can handle my dad."

"Do you think he's serious about the threats that he is making?" asked Nara.

Lirri stood and snorted loudly, causing a few of her fellow Ubroans to look over at the group, "I think anyone with half a brain can figure out that branding you two Jedi traitors to Ubrora was a pretty self-centred thing to do. But he does have support from his loyal followers, business leaders and anyone he's catered to over the years."

"If I didn't know any better, it seems like your dad wants the city to fall to the droids. He knows that these invaders won't let him stay as mayor, right?" he said, trying to remain somewhat diplomatic.

"You are more than free to go tell him, Master Jedi."

"It might be worth exploring," chimed in Nara, "It would make it easier for everyone if we all get on the same side."

Sascha considered that. While they didn't necessarily need the mayor to be a part of the resistance, it would be nice if he didn't paint him and Nara as vigilantes defying the will of the people. Perhaps it would be a good idea to sit down with Murgo, especially because it appeared that his daughter was going to be playing a starring role in the resistance.

"Contact!" barked one of the nearby Ubrorans that was monitoring communications.

Sascha, Nara and Lirri went over to his console, sure enough the droids appeared to be marching into the city. Sascha was finding that it was very helpful that everyone on Ubrora was broadcasting their personal cameras to the world. It was making it very easy to track their enemies moves.

"Positions everyone!" yelled Nara, "Battle plan Alpha-J."

A few minutes later, everyone was (hopefully) in the right position for giving the droids a rather hostile welcome to Bontha. Over the past two days, the resistance had laid a series of traps for the droid army, and now they were going to spring them. They wouldn't be able to destroy all the incoming droids in one day, in one attack, but if things went right, they could put quite a dent in their numbers.

He was on a rooftop that offered a good view of the incoming army. He and Nara were together, overseeing two Ubrorans that had shown the most aptitude for sharpshooting, Lirri and another Ubroran named Sekac, a former hunter. Sascha had tried to talk to Sekac, but he was tight-lipped about who he was and where he came from. Sascha had learned to leave him alone.

The plan was to do damage at a distance and then retreat further into the city, set up again, rinse and repeat. He and Nara were there to make sure that nothing unfortunate happened to their sharpshooters. "Remember," said Nara, "Don't be picky with targets, just hit what you can. This is a war of attrition, and each droid we disassemble is one that they won't be able to replace. And don't be overly brave, those droids are disposable, but you aren't."

"Copy boss," said the deeply male voice of Sekac.

Lirri made no reply, she just settled in, shrugging off the rainfall, and stared down the sight of her rifle. While he and Nara would have been the better snipers, it was important to get the Ubrorans experience in fighting, plus they needed to coordinate the rest of their traps. They settled in to wait until the droids were in range.

The droids were just about in firing range when he felt Nara tense up beside him, "What the hell?" Sascha was about to ask what had drawn Nara's ire when he saw it too. Making a beeline for the incoming droid army was a procession of Ubrorans, dressed richly even in the pouring rain. There was no mistaking the person in front of the group, it was the smug features of the Mayor of Bontha, Murgo Boikana.

"Dad?" said Lirri, temporarily abandoning her post to stare at the procession as they walked by. "What are they doing?"

Sascha began to have a feeling about where this procession was going, and it did not bode well for them.

The two lines moved towards each other, one a procession of well dressed, older Ubrorans, the other a procession of killer battle droids. Somehow, Sascha didn't think that the mayor and his companions were trying to do the same thing that they were. Nara shot him a look, openly wondering what they should do, now that circumstances had changed quite dramatically. They had explosives and other ambushes set up along the path that the droid army was likely to take, but they had assumed that the area would be clear of civilians. They apparently had assumed wrong.

The transport stopped and unloaded the Neimoidian that they had scared a few days ago. He was much cockier today and he walked over to Murgo Boikana, and extended a hand in greeting. The Ubroran accepted the proffered hand and the two processions linked up and started heading back in the direction of the main hub of the city with the Neimoidian and Murgo in friendly conversation with the other.

Sascha closed his eyes for a brief moment, feeling all the hard work he had done over the last twelve hours go up in smoke. Then he activated his comlink, "This is Sascha Whitestar, mission is scrubbed, return to base. If you can collect your munitions without being seen, do so. Regroup and we'll get them next time."

Lirri reacted demonstrably, jumping up to yell at him, "No! Let me shoot! Who cares if these traitors die!" Lirri raced back to her rifle and stared down the sight, trying to find a target to fire at. Nara wrenched the rifle with the Force, taking it from Lirri's hands. Lirri marched towards Nara, but was quickly restrained by Sekac. Undeterred, she fought against Sekac and tried to go nose to nose with the taller Togruta, "Who are you to decide what happens on my planet! Those are our enemies out there! And my father is with them! They don't deserve mercy"

Nara was calm during the outburst, and replied calmly, "We are fighting to free the planet, not to kill your fellow Ubrorans. We don't know all the factors. Maybe your dad has some information that we don't have. Maybe he doesn't. Our enemy is the droid army, understand?"

Lirri gestured angrily towards the droids and intermixed Ubrorans that were walking away, "This is a fight for my planet, and I say that I deserve a say in what is going on. I say we spent too long setting up these traps to just discard them."

"Okay, Lirri has spoken, let's go Nara."

Nara seemed confused but followed his lead and walked beside him as he started to leave the rooftop.

"Wait, what?" said Lirri, "Where are you going?"

"Back to our Masters. Clearly you don't seem interested in having our help."

Lirri at last seemed to realize that perhaps she had overstepped her bounds and bowed her head, "I'm sorry if I offended you," she said, "of course, we still need your help."

He looked at Nara for a moment. The Togruta shrugged, so he went back over to speak to Lirri, "We are going to things our way, got it? I know this looks bad, but we'll have to find a way to turn this to our advantage. That's our new plan, okay?"

Lirri straightened, "Yes, sir."

He smiled confidently at Lirri and Sekac, "Don't worry, we're going to make a statement, and I know just how to do it."


	28. Chapter 28: Resistance, Part Two

**Speechbubbleme** \- Yeah, conflict between family members is like the #1 Star Wars story. Gotta fit in thematically!

 **LordDarthYoda** \- It's basically the second point - Vash is sending money to Murgo Boikana to be the 'friendly' face of the invasion. Those darn ambitious politicians, they just cannot be trusted!

A/N - So I got paranoid about posting two shorter chapters back to back and tried to add something to the end of this chapter, and I just hated it. So I got rid of it. I do write long chapters, sometimes, but I also think I need to be okay with writing short chapters. More words doesn't always equal more quality. That being said, longer chapters will soon be forthcoming!

Anyways, all reviews, follows, and favourites are deeply appreciated as always.

Please enjoy the next chapter.

* * *

 **Chapter 28: Resistance, Part Two  
**

 _"I wonder though, where were the two young Jedi that destroyed the first contingent of droids sent to Bontha. I do not like it when my enemy's most important assets disappear. I hope they do not reappear, for my sake as much as theirs."_

-From the Journal of Pravin Ecalt, Five days in to the Invasion of Ubrora

* * *

Bruenor Arkanus sat in his new office in the capital building of Bontha, delighted by how recent events had worked out for him. He had known that attaching his star to Vash Varless, rather than returning to his post in the Trade Federation would work out, and now here he was, in charge of governing an entire city. Sure, Murgo Boikana was still the mayor, in theory. In practice, he had more than a thousand droids at his personal command, and not even the two Jedi who had threatened him could handle that many droids. Yes, life was good for Bruenor Arkanus.

Bruenor was Neimoidian, a species that was generally considered by many to be somewhat repulsive. Not physically, of course, but by reputation. It was unjust, other beings just had a strange way of living their lives, prioritizing things like love and creating achievements. Neimoidians were clearheaded, they knew what the galaxy was really like, and it wasn't their fault that they were misunderstood and thought to be 'greedy.'

His new office would need some redecorating, he decided, as he looked around. it was colourful enough, but it needed to be richer. He would put in a request as soon as this pathetic world capitulated. As soon as Ubrora conceded to the inevitable, that there was no way that they could defend against the military forces arrayed against them, he would finally have a position in life where he could become rich.

He would have to be subtle how he accumulated his wealth, skimming percentages off of things like food exports, but being careful to not draw attention to him. He wasn't worried about Vash Varless, the man was a tyrant and something of a military genius, but he never seemed to pay much attention to the financial side of his growing operation. For that he had him and the other Neimoidians that had saw fit to remain with the _Reprisal_. Bruenor had seen that his investments had been wise. As long as Vash had money to replace his military losses and buy some of the more expensive toys he wanted, he didn't seem to pay much attention to him. Therefore, he didn't expect things to change now.

Vash had been surprised by his request to become the new governor of this city, but he had been more than happy to acquiesce. For Bruenor, the math was simple, now that he was away from Vash Varless, he would have an easier time accumulating personal wealth, wealth that would get him off this rock and on to a planet more to his liking. And was that not the ultimate goal of life? To collect assets, and accumulate wealth? Life was nasty, brutish and short, so the only rational way to deal with the stark reality was to make your life as comfortable as possible. And they only way to find comfort, was to buy things that made you comfortable.

He reflected back on being assaulted by those two Jedi younglings a few days ago. It made his blood boil just to think about how the Jedi had destroyed his escorts and sent him back to Pravin Ecalt with his tail between his legs. It was so silly, the Jedi had so much power, even those little younglings had no problem dealing with the droids that escorted him, but their Order walked around wearing rags when they could have been dressed in the finest of silks. It was truly sad, an order of beings that could have power, but chose not to use it. Bruenor shrugged, it wasn't his problem, but he would take a certain satisfaction when the four Jedi on planet were killed. Maybe he could ask for one of the Jedi's lightsabers. That would be a good trinket to prove the one thing that he knew for certain.

No one got away with threatening Bruenor Arkanus.

Smiling to himself, Bruenor rose from his chair, a chair that was far too small for his frame, getting a chair that fit him would be one of the first things he would do after he officially moved in. Maybe he could request his ally, the mayor of Bontha to get him a custom made design...

Deep in thought, he moved towards the window of his office on the fifteenth floor, the highest in the capitol building, a building that he would soon call home. As he stared outside at the continuing downpour, he saw a flash of lightning strike one of the nearby buildings. He shook his head, such a pathetic planet, such inclement weather. He would have to ensure that he would spend the minimum amount of time on this backwards outpost and find a world with a more agreeable climate.

As he moved back to his desk, preparing to conclude a successful day, the backlight of his datapad revealed something that chilled his blood.

He was not alone in this room.

But as soon as he saw the reflection of something or someone behind him, it was gone. Buenor stood from his chair, shakily, as if his legs were unable to support his weight now, "Who is there?" he asked into the room.

Silence answered him.

Despite the fact that the room was fully lit, there was enough unexplored nooks and closets and such that someone could have hid here, he realized. The droids had swept this room before he had claimed this room for his own, but droids were known to miss things.

He used his comlink to contact the droids that he had left patrolling the capitol building, "Get in here and search my room again. I think there is someone here!" He turned off his comlink before he could hear the repetitive reply of "roger, roger."

In what was the longest thirty seconds of his life, he stood unmoving as he waited for the droids to reach his room. When they entered, he breathed a sigh of relief, now he would be safe, he would get the droids to escort him to his new room and stand guard for him throughout the night, after all, he was _important_ now. "Get started on sweeping the room, find if there is anyone here," he commanded the spindly beige droids.

"Yes, sir," replied the nasally voice of the battle droids.

The droids clanked across the room, inspecting the various closets, corners and compartments that dotted the room. As the droids scrutinized each opening, he began to feel silly, after all, he was sure that it was impossible that anyone could have gotten into this room. As the droids came towards the outfacing window, he was considering if perhaps this planet's atmosphere was causing him to lose his sanity when he heard something from a far corner.

"Looking for us?" said a young, confident female voice that came from one of the alcoves nearest the window. Suddenly, two beams of light sprang into existence and two robed figures emerged from the darkened corner of the room. He could have sworn that there hadn't been enough room for one person, let alone two people, but he had been wrong. The droids seemed to be equally surprised, as they fell to the two attackers in a matter of seconds, only a couple of droids got off a shot at all. Stunned, it took him a long while to process who the two beings in his room were.

"The…J-J-Jedi!" he stammered.

The little Togruta, her face lit up from the excitement of battle smiled at him, showing off her sharp, predatory teeth, "Hey, he remembers us!" she exclaimed happily.

Bruenor snatched at his comlink, yelling for more reinforcements to come and save him.

"Oh good, Sascha he's calling for more droids!"

"Excellent, those first droids didn't give us much of a challenge at all," replied the male human, his brown eyes showing off amusement at Bruenor's predicament.

Why weren't the Jedi scared? The droids weren't great unless they had overwhelming numbers, but there were lots of them between his office and the first floor, more than enough to deal with these brash Jedi. The two of them swept around the room looking for more droids, and completely ignored him.

His comlink buzzed, he activated it to hear the nasally voice of a battle droid, "uh, sir, the turbolifts are damaged, we can't get to your floor."

He closed his eyes, he should have known that the Jedi wouldn't go down easily, he should have known that they would want him, after all he was Bruenor Arkanus, and he was _important_.

* * *

Sascha, Nara and their complaining guest knocked on the door of a nondescript house in the outskirts of Bontha. "Where are you taking me!" their Neimodian demanded.

"Well, you helped invade the Ubroran homeworld, I think we'll turn you over to some Ubrorans," she said. The Neimodian's eyes widened as he realized how much trouble that he was in. Nara didn't exactly have a high opinion of Niemoidians to begin with and this candidate wasn't exactly improving their stock.

"I can make you rich, get you off this planet," said the Neimodian.

"Sascha, is our guest really trying to bribe a Jedi?" she asked.

"I'm almost insulted that he even tried," replied Sascha, deadpan.

"You don't want to be rich...whats wrong with you two?"

Nara was formulating a response when Lirri Boikana answered the door with an inviting smile, "I see you brought a guest."

"I heard it was tradition on Ubrora to bring a present whenever you visit someone's house," Sascha joked.

Nara smiled, it had been a simple thing to scale the side of the capital building, and gain access via an open window. At that point all they had to do was memorize the pathways that the droids guarding the building took, and then when the opportunity arose, sabotage the turbolifts to make their escape easy. It had mostly been Sascha's plan, but he had let her take the lead in executing the plan, she was stealthier and generally speaking a better fighter. She and Sascha were a finding that they indeed were a good team.

Then after they had destroyed what few droids were on the floor of their Neimoidian friend, they simply scaled down the side of the building, floating their captive along with the Force, while all the droids were trying to go up to capture them. Simple, effective, a perfect plan, perfectly executed.

Lirri's modest home had already become the de facto headquarters for the burgeoning resistance movement, and it was currently a scene of barely organized chaos as they led their prisoner into a room that had been specially prepared for him. Joining the two Jedi in the room were Lirri and Arslan, who was in charge of broadcasting this 'interview' with their captured Neimoidian. Arslan would make sure that the major news networks would catch wind of this broadcast and he hoped that many would broadcast at least the highlights of the interview

Lirri, hard faced and legitimately mad, sat across from the Neimodian that was restrained with the Ubroran equivalent of stuncuffs. "State your name for the record," Lirri said in an even tone.

"I will tell you nothing!" the Neimodian declared.

Nara closed her eyes for a moment, concentrating on the Neimodian's thoughts. Unsurprisingly he was rather weak willed and his name was in some of the Neimoidian's most easy to access thoughts.

"His name is Bruenor Arkanus," she said.

The Neimodian reacted, "How did you do that!"

Sascha twirled a finger, "We are Jedi, in case you forgot. Telepathy is a pretty standard Jedi trick."

"It will go easier if you just answer the questions," Lirri said not quite calmly. "Then after the war, we can determine what sort of war crimes you are guilty of. Any information you provide us now, I'm sure will be looked upon favourably when we determine your final sentence."

Bruenor looked shocked, and Nara could almost hear him thinking out loud, trying to figure out the best course of action, the best way to save his skin. "I will tell you nothing! You're planet will fall, and each and every one of you will be punished."

Sascha shrugged some water off of his waterlogged cloak, "Well, we tried to let you take the easy way Bruenor, but clearly you've chosen the hard way."

The Neimodian recoiled visibly, almost falling out of his chair. He then pointed a shaking finger at her and Sascha, "They are Jedi, they can't torture me, they have a code," Bruenor Arkanus declared, but Nara could feel his fear.

"We have a code, certainly," she agreed, and gestured to the two Ubrorans, "But do they? You've invaded their world, it's kind of a 'there are no rules' sort of engagement don't you think?"

The threat was a total bluff, she and Sascha could hardly stand by when a being was being hurt. But Bruenor certainly didn't know that, and the serious looks of Lirri and Arslan showed that things could potentially get very unpleasant for poor Bruenor. The Neimoidian looked defiant for a moment before bowing his head in defeat, "I will tell you what I know."

An hour later, after they had exhausted what little Bruenor actually knew about what was facing Ubrora, he was ushered out and allowed given his own personal closet that would be his holding cell for now. As they had planned beforehand, Lirri turned to Arslan as he was the 'camera' as odd as that was to think, and addressed the audience, "You see what kind of creatures you are facing. These are not implacable enemies; Bruenor was plucked from what should have been the safest place in Bontha. The Jedi have promised that they will keep this world free, but they can only do so if we aid them. Every little bit counts, do your part and we will all come through this."

Arslan hit a button and the jewel in the middle of his shirt dimmed, a sign that his broadcast was over, "Good speech," he said with a smile.

Lirri rose immediately, ignoring Arslan, "I have to get to work preparing for tomorrow," she said.

As she exited, Arslan shook his head sadly, "I knew Lirri a bit, before all this happened. She was a carefree spirit. I don't know what happened to her, but she seems like a completely different person now. I overheard her talking to someone, I think it was her brother, about a dream that she had, it seems liked it really affected her." Arslan scratched under his chin, "A lot of people here look up to her, she's young, good looking and from a famous family. But she's…different now."

Nara shared a look with Sascha, both catching the importance of Lirri's dream, as a Force sensitive, even an untrained one, could receive a vision from the Force. Visions were dangerous, they often mislead rather than illuminated, but maybe it could offer a clue as to what had changed Lirri's disposition.

Sascha refocused the discussion, "They look up to you, Arslan," he noted. The Ubroran smiled sadly, "that's because they don't know any better. I'm a behind the scenes guy, always have been always will be. I don't know how to inspire, I can be the 'boss' but I'm hardly a 'rah-rah' leader. Lirri wants to lead from the front, she's always been like that. People respect that."

"I think Sascha and I will need to have a chat with her at some point," she said, eying where Lirri had made her exit. Nara thought that perhaps it might be time for Ubrora to have their first Jedi.


	29. Chapter 29: Tactics

**LordDarthYoda** \- It's sometimes fun to write characters who have outsized opinions of themselves. Bruenor is certainly one of those people. He thinks that he's a main character, when in reality, he's just a background character in a more important story. And I think you are right that everything has gone a little too well for the Jedi so far. But it will get worse for them, believe me...

A/N - I'm actually taking a vacation from work, so I'm going to have lots of time to write in the next week (yay!) Really need to polish up the rest of this book and get cracking on the next one - posting two chapters a week has meant that we've covered a lot of what I've already written quite quickly!

Anyways, all reviews, follows, and favourites are deeply appreciated as always.

Please enjoy the next chapter.

* * *

 **Chapter 29: Tactics**

" _Curse whoever did the research on this planet. If I find the person responsible, I will make it my top priority to have him brought to me and have this person experience this weather. Rain, torrential rain, for days on end, rain that seems to never end. It would have been nice to know that this was the rainy season on planet when planning this planetary invasion. Truly, I am supported by idiots, and droids._

-From the Journal of Pravin Ecalt, seven days in to the Invasion of Ubrora

* * *

"Good work, capturing the designated regent sent to Bontha, Padawans. What are your plans for today?"

Though Aurine Brynar couldn't physically see her Padawan or Nara because she was just talking to the Padawans over her comlink, she could almost see the prideful expression on their faces.

"Tomorrow we are going droid hunting," Sascha said without much enthusiasm, "and we'll bring along some of our Ubroran friends as well."

"How are your friends at fighting?"

"Well, let's just say that we'll be paying attention to make sure they don't shoot us accidentally," Nara commented dryly.

Aurine grimaced, while she still thought that having Sascha and Nara lead a resistance force in Bontha was the best use of their talents, she just wished that there weren't so many hidden dangers in their task. Fighting with untrained 'troops' beside them was just one of those hidden dangers. Because the resistance fighters were essentially civilians, they were prone to doing more crazy and undisciplined things than professional soldiers would. Still, she maintained hope that Sascha and Nara would be kept out of the worst of the fighting. And if she did her job, they would.

"Well, stay safe, Padawans."

"We will, Master," replied Sascha.

"Did you get any information out of the Neimoidian you captured?"

"Nah," said Sascha. "Despite our Neimodian friend's massive ego, he's really just a flunky, an administrator, he didn't know anything of real importance. I'll transmit what he did reveal to you though."

"Okay, I'll look for that. If there is nothing else, I'll talk to you later…"

"Wait," interrupted Nara, "I have something I want to propose." Aurine felt her eyebrows raise, having not expected the interruption from the Togruta. Through the comlink, she heard Nara take a deep breath, "I think we should tell Lirri that she's force-sensitive. I think that we could brand her 'the first Ubroran Jedi.' She's already taken a leadership position within the resistance, and we could make her into an effective propaganda tool. The Ubrorans already greatly respect the Jedi, having one of their own could potentially be a boon. I know you probably don't want to do this," conceded Nara, "But I think it might be a good idea.

Aurine took a moment to think about it. In a normal situation, she would have said no, that the danger of even revealing the truth about Lirri's hidden talents could have wide-ranging effects. But it wouldn't matter if Ubrora became a colony world of Vash Varless' little empire. She, like Nara, realized that she had to use everything at her disposal to keep this planet free. "Okay, you can tell Lirri about her force-sensitivity, but don't teach her anything. Make her a propaganda tool, nothing else."

"We understand, Master," the Togruta replied, "May the Force be with you."

"And with you, Padawans." Aurine ended the call, and returned her focus to the task at hand. And what a task it was.

Aurine stared out over the open plains of Ubrora as rain pelted her mercilessly from above. The rain didn't bother her, indeed she actually welcomed it. In her mind it was the weather of Ubrora fighting back against Behind her was the start of what the Ubrorans called the Napier Valley. The Napier Valley was by most geological definitions, a canyon, and it separated the city of Gamudo from the cities of Namya in the east and Wingke in the south. And thus, because it offered the fastest route from where the droid army had landed in Gamudo, to the cities that were likely to be their next targets, Namya and Wingke, she had expected that the droid army would try to traverse the canyon. The shortest route from city to city was the logical route to take, she expected that someone commanding an army of droids would simply make the most logical, and uninspiring choice.

While the droid army could have avoided the long canyon by going around it, they had chosen not to, probably partially due to the pounding rains and the harassment by Tiplee and her raiders. The rains had slowed down the advance of the army, because the ground had become slick and treacherous, and even droids could slip and fall. An untrained observer might suggest that a droid army was immune to things that flesh and blood armies were subject to. But Aurine knew differently. Even droids needed to recharge, and even droid armies had supply lines that could be overextended.

Aurine had to admit that Tiplee had also done a fantastic job in slowing down the advance of the main enemy army as well. Though the strength of her contingent of Ubroran Rangers was dwindling, Tiplee made sure that the enemy army could not rest for a moment, or shut down to recharge their batteries. She had been so effective that the enemy had not even bothered to secure it's flanks anymore, just simply opting to keep the army together in one massive armored fist.

And it was that fist was about to descend into the Napier Valley.

And that was where she was taking over. She had to make the incoming army pay for every inch of territory that it took along the Napier Valley, because if it wasn't at a manageable size when it came out of the valley, she would do the honorable thing and surrender. She was a fighter, but neither could she completely ignore that she was a Jedi. Jedi protected life, so she would not, could not order her troops into battle if there wasn't a chance of success.

But she hoped that she had been clever enough with the traps she had laid out. That maybe the droids would be stupid, or incompetent, and maybe, just maybe, the army that got to the end of the valley would be weakened enough, that they could stage a definitive fight for the freedom of Ubrora.

Her comlink beeped, and she answered the call with the press of a button, "General Brynar, we've spotted the droid army. What are your orders?"

She took a long deep breath, preparing herself for battle, "Operation Death Valley is a go. I'll be joining the first wave of defenders. If you cannot contact me for whatever reason, Colonel Jeffs is in command. Brynar out."

In the distance, Aurine could see the first vestiges of the droid army making its approach, which meant that it was time for her to make herself scarce. If her life was a holodrama, she would single handedly cut through the approaching army as if she was some sort of demigod. Even in Aurine's wildest dreams she could hardly imagine doing such a thing. She could do amazing things for moments at a time, but she was still subject to the laws of physics and the laws of mortality...

Putting that thought aside, she left her vantage point and found the speeder that she had driven to get here, put it into gear and zoomed away from the approaching droid army. It didn't take long for her to reach her destination deeper into the valley. Aurine found her way to the first layer of the traps that she had set out for the incoming army. The first layer was the sort of traps that any sort of reasonable commander would expect, snipers and small platoons that harassed the incoming enemy and then broke and ran before any significant opposition could be brought to bear on them. The second layer of traps was more devious, but an experienced commander would probably be expecting them. This layer was made up of explosive traps that would hopefully take out many droids as they came close to their pressure sensors.

The third layer of traps…was potentially a masterstroke or completely insane, and Aurine hadn't decided on which it was yet. Hopefully she'd never have to use the third layer of traps.

She waved to the four other Ubrorans she'd be sharing this particular ambush spot with. The group of four soldiers had set up camp behind a natural rocky outcropping that hid their getaway speeder as well as provided some cover. Having spent hours on making sure that their little ambush spot was hidden from view, Aurine had only found the Ubrorans through the Force. This was going to be a simple snipe and run, but she wanted to be visible on the front lines, inspiring her troops.

At least these Ubrorans were professional soldiers and they comported themselves as such. As soon as they saw her approach, the started loudly joking with her, however, she noted that the spotters kept their eyes scanning their surroundings and the snipers kept their hands on their weapons.

"You going to throw your lightsaber at the droids, General? Or do you want to take one of the rifles? Slaty here is the worse shot so you can take his rifle."

"Hey!" responded the other Ubroan sniper indignantly.

Aurine smiled slightly, "No I'm here only to observe and to protect you if something goes wrong."

"Boring," replied the first sniper.

"And hopefully unnecessary," she said.

The first sniper stretched out his shoulders for a moment, "As you say, General Brynar."

They waited for perhaps an hour, before the first signs of the droid army appeared. The spotters saw them just after she had managed to sense them, she couldn't really sense the droids, but she could sense the flesh and blood beings that accompanied the massive army. The spotters with their MB450 macrobinoculars calmly called out the distance to the approaching droids. As it decreased, the tension in the air seemed to grow.

"Remember," she whispered quietly, "Don't worry about taking out priority targets, just hit what you can. We'll have about a minute to do as much damage as we can before they call down an artillery strike from one of their Armored Assault Tanks. Set your chronos, and after a minute, we break for the speeder, understood?"

Various murmurs answered her. Feeling that the snipers were locked in, Aurine withdrew to behind them, not wanting to disrupt their preparations

When the droids reached a reasonable distance, the snipers opened fire. The first shot hit a commander droid, it's yellow insignia and markings gave it away as a droid of slightly more value than the basic, run of the mill battle droids. Whatever it had been it was headless now. Aurine watched as the droids attempted to fire back at the snipers, but their weapons were not rated for the kind of distance they were at, and the droids fire was harmless. She didn't even bother igniting her lightsaber.

Aurine figured it was only a matter of time before someone transmitted their location to someone with some bigger guns, but that took time. It took a report from a droid to a flesh-and-blood commander who then would then decide on a course of action, who would then transmit an order. That took time, but she was hoping that it would take enough time for a reaction that little raids like this could be effective. She was taking a risk, but it was a calculated one.

As her chrono beeped, indicating it had been a minute since they had started firing, Aurine abandoned her rocky post and headed for the speeder behind. Two Ubrorans diligently followed her. Slaty and his observer did not. "Slaty!" she yelled, "Time to bug out!"

"Just a few more seconds…and….gotcha. Okay we are coming."

Aurine cursed and gunned the engines to the speeder. She saw Slaty and his observer running down the rocky escarpment, pebbles being kicked up by his boots as they slid made his way towards her. Then Aurine felt her danger sense flare. She knew what that had to mean.

"Too late! Get down!" she yelled.

Years of training took over for Aurine Brynar. She reached out with her senses and determined what was approaching. It was an artillery shell, being fired ballistically and accurately at their location. She knew that if it landed in the right area, it would hit the outcropping, annihilating it and the speeder along with it. It would be a very ignominious end for a Jedi Knight, but she was just a mortal, she could die.

She reached out with the Force, searching for the incoming projectile. It was moving far too quickly to grab or even move out of the way, all she could do was use the Force to push upwards and hope that her invisible hand could just nudge the incoming missile out of the way.

She focused, and sent a burst of energy towards the incoming projectile, putting all of her focus, all of her willpower behind it. Her push almost missed the missile completely and it turned her Force push into a nudge, but sometimes a nudge is just enough.

The now slightly off-course missile exploded in front of the speeder, and it sent the barely moving speeder careening wildly. She felt the heat from the explosion just in front of her, felt it send her hair scattering, and for a half-second she wondered if this was it, if the explosion was going to consumer her, but apparently she had done just enough to move the missile out of the way. It took all of her vast piloting experience not to smash the speeder into the canyon wall, but she could not prevent the speeder from rolling and dumping all of its cargo on the ground. She jumped from the falling speeder, falling shoulder first on the hard, rocky ground. She rolled with the impact, attempting (and not really succeeding) to minimize the damage that she took from the collision.

Aurine looked around. Two Ubrorans were down, with injuries that seemed to be minor. She was bleeding from a cut somewhere on her forehead, and her shoulder was throbbing but she was otherwise fine. The other two Ubrorans were picking up the equipment that had fallen out of the speeder and were looking to her for further instructions. "We have to get out of here," she said, feeling a sudden wave of fatigue come over her. Moving artillery shells out of the way was not something that she could do every day.

She helped one of the wounded Ubrorans, Slaty, to his feet, "Thanks, General." She gestured further down the valley, "Come on, we have to go before they figure out we lived through that."

The group hustled away, further down the canyon. Aurine carried Slaty, while the observers carried the wounded sniper away. She activated her comlink and called for one of the nearby groups to come by and pick them up. After a few breathless minutes of running away as fast as possible, she saw the speeder in the distance. Waving it down, the group hustled inside, and the driver took off as soon as everyone had found a seat.

It was not until she was well away from the fighting that she allowed herself to relax. All things considered, it hadn't gone too badly. Only two soldiers slightly injured in exchange for the ten or fifteen droids they'd managed to disable. At this rate, it would only take about ten years to whittle down the droid army.

Aurine leaned back in her seat. Was it even possible to win this war? Or was she just bravely fighting against the impossible?


	30. Chapter 30: Conversation

**LordDarthYoda** \- I was referring in a roundabout way to the Clone Wars animated cartoon, where (in a hilarious and awesome sequence), Mace Windu destroys like an entire droid army. If you haven't seen the Clone Wars animated cartoon, its an interesting watch, even though it is no longer canon. The Jedi in particular are hilariously OP. As for Lirri, we'll you'll get your answer in this chapter...

A/N - Posting late so nothing from me...

Anyways, all reviews, follows, and favourites are deeply appreciated as always.

Please enjoy the next chapter.

* * *

 **Chapter 30: Conversation**

" _One has to admire the Jedi, and for one reason beyond any other. The have no qualms about putting themselves in danger, even when the odds against them are bleak. I wonder if an acceptable peace could be negotiated."_

" _Hah, who am I kidding! If I sued for peace, Vash Varless would have my head mounted on a spike."_

-From the Journal of Pravin Ecalt, Eight days in to the Invasion of Ubrora

* * *

"Now," said Sascha Whitestar quietly. He and Nara jumped out from around the corner of the building they had been hiding behind, igniting their lightsabers. Five beige battle droids stared back at them. Had the droids been programmed to display surprise, he was sure that they would have appeared to be shocked. Unfortunately, those who programmed battle droids didn't appear to feel the need to program human emotions into a droid. Logical.

The droids, their battle programming kicking in, immediately spaced out and started firing at them. He and the Togruta next to him had no problems batting away such a measly amount of incoming fire, but they did not advance on them as they normally would have, had they been intent on dispatching them. That wasn't quite what they were doing here.

Behind them, a group of Ubroran resistance fighters sprang out from cover and opened fire on the droids, using the two Jedi as mobile shields. Despite the training that the Jedi had given their fellow resistance fighters, the Ubrorans were terrible shots. The adrenaline of battle made the nervous Ubrorans even worse than they had been on the firing range. Sascha was subtly moving out of the wayward shots of his allies, and off to his left, he felt Nara doing the same. Still, eventually a few shots from the Ubrorans found their targets, causing the furred creatures to whoop in excitement. Sascha would have told them to pipe down, had he not been concentrating intently on blocking the laser bolts from two directions.

After a frustratingly long period of time, eventually the Ubrorans behind him managed to subdue the droids with their inaccurate fire. Once the last droid was a smoking mess on the ground, the resistance fighters started celebrating excitedly, only Lirri seemed to hold herself back from the merriment. As the two Jedi watched the celebration, not at all amused, Sascha caught Nara's eye and she nodded. This had not only been a foray to get the Ubrorans some combat experience, they had also both wanted to know how well they had listened to some of the more detailed instructions they had given the resistance soldiers.

"Scatter protocol," he said with authority.

The scatter protocol was a fail safe that he and Nara had put in place. Had they come across a situation that was too dangerous, Sascha and Nara would stay and fight, allowing their charges to escape the peril. The Ubrorans were not supposed to stick together, but head off in random directions, meaning that if one Ubroran were being pursued, he or she would not lead them to more of their fellows. That way, even if disaster struck, some of the resistance would survive.

Upon hearing the words uttered, Lirri took off down the street, but the other Ubrorans looked around in confusion. One of them piped up, "We just destroyed those droids! We don't need the scatter protocol. That's for if we get in trouble!"

"Are you questioning us?" said Nara, her voice low, gravelly. In the evening light, Nara looked more threatening than usual, only the white markings on her face and her bright intelligent eyes seemed to emerge from underneath the hood of her cloak. The remaining Ubrorans decided that Nara wasn't kidding and immediately dispersed, running in different directions.

The two Padawans waited until everyone was out of sight, before they started off back towards Lirri's house at a leisurely pace, "Nara, I believe you've made our Ubroran allies afraid of you," he said lightheartedly.

"Yeah, well, they should be terrified of me."

"Really? Explain the logic to me."

"Sure," said the Togruta, pulling her cloak tighter around her, trying to keep her lekku dry from the rain and not exactly succeeding, "I'm the bad cop and you are the good cop."

"Uh huh… and when did I agree to this arrangement?"

Nara shrugged casually, keeping up her brisk pace, "There was nothing to agree to, you're the more compassionate, easygoing one. Me, I'm the scary looking alien with head-tails. I can tell that everyone is a little scared of me, and after doing some research, I know why."

"Wait, _you_ did research?"

"I'm not brain dead Whitestar, I know how to look things up on my datapad."

"Of course, I just meant…" he trailed off, embarrassed that he had underestimated his friend again. "Sorry," he apologized.

Nara turned her head so that she was looking at him, and she smiled, "see, that's what I like about you Sascha, you make mistakes, but you always apologize for making them. Perhaps a Togruta should learn from your example."

"Or perhaps we should stop making mistakes altogether," he responded.

"Let's stay within the realm of what is possible," Nara jested lightly. "As I was saying, I did some research, and part of the reason that your average Ubroran is scared of me is that I bear a striking resemblance to a legendary creature from Ubroran legend. Of course the _Gampethon_ was supposedly ten feet tall and breathed fire, but there is some resemblance."

"You sure you couldn't just...evolve into one of those things for a few days? We could use a ten foot tall fire-breathing creature about now."

"Sure, just let me go into a cocoon for a few days and I'll emerge as a creature double my size," Nara said sarcastically. "All Togrutas can do it."

Sascha laughed softly in the rain. There was something about Nara playing along with his absurd jokes that remained fun, even in these trying times. "I'll have to look up that creature when we get back to Lirri's." He had always been fascinated by local legends and it would make a good distraction for an hour or so.

The two Jedi continued walking in the pouring rain. Nara finally broke the silence, "Are you ready to tell Lirri that she could have been a Jedi?"

"I don't know about this idea Nara, I know Master Brynar said it was okay, but this is a huge thing to tell someone, I'm not sure how she'll take it. She's our best fighter, but she's wild. Not exactly Jedi material."

"Do you trust me?"

"Is water wet?"

Nara smiled, "Well, you know on some worlds, the water…"

Sascha threw his hands up in exasperation, "Solah! I submit, Nara. Let's just get out of this accursed rain."

The Jedi found their way to Lirri's house, which was located in a quiet area of the suburbs, where they dried off and waited for Lirri to get back home. Her home was now one of the many that the resistance had co-opted, and it housed the unofficial leader of the fighters in Lirri, the non-fighters in Arslan, and the two Jedi. He was the only one who didn't have a room to himself, but he was currently using a couch in the living room as his bed. One nice thing about being used to sleeping on a barely padded bedroll, was that he didn't find it difficult to fall asleep in less than ideal situations.

When Lirri got home, she stripped off her raincoat and joined the Jedi in the living room. Nara had prepared some warm tea, and she handed a cup to the Ubroran who accepted it gratefully. "So, how'd we do out there?" Lirri asked.

"Could have been better, could have been much, much worse. You and the others will improve quickly," he responded.

"I didn't like how the others didn't respond to your orders," said Lirri. "I'll have a word with everyone. We have to realize that you are the experienced ones in these things, and you are only trying to keep us safe."

"That would be appreciated," he said.

"We actually have something we'd like to talk to you about, Lirri," said Nara.

The Ubroran looked confused for a minute, "Is this going to be about my dad, because I'm not going to…"

"No, Lirri, this is about you," Nara cut off the Ubroran. "Do you remember when we told you that to become a Jedi you had to be born with something called Force-sensitivity?" Lirri nodded and the Togruta continued, "Well, we aren't allowed to say this before, but we can now. Lirri, you are Force-sensitive. You could have been a Jedi."

Lirri blinked a couple of times, looked back and forth between he and Nara, and then she shook her head in confusion, "I'm sorry, what?"

"You have the same talent that saw us get recruited by the Jedi Order, Lirri," he said.

"That's impossible," said Lirri, rising from her seat, "I can't lift objects with my mind, or fight like you can, or do any of the hundred impossible things I've seen you do since you came here."

Lirri seemed agitated so Sascha tried to calm her down, speaking in a slow, calm tone of voice, "We've had years of training that allowed us to do that, Lirri. It's one of the reasons we are taken from our parents at such a young age, because it takes a long time to learn to control our powers."

Lirri sat heavily on her chair, eyes towards the floor, rainwater dripping off her snout and onto the table, "I still don't believe you."

Nara looked at him helplessly. How were they going to convince Lirri that she was what they said she was? The Togruta then startled briefly, as if she was remembering something that she had forgotten, "Lirri have you ever had a dream that felt so real, it felt like you were actually living it?"

The Ubroran looked up, shock in her expression, "How could you know that! For years I had doctors and psychiatrists tell me that it was nothing but the delusions of a young mind."

Nara shook her head, "Those were visions, Lirri. Some Jedi get them, including me."

"Are…they of the future?" Lirri asked with a quaver, suddenly scared.

"A possible future," he said placatingly, "We are told that the future is always in motion. What you may have seen could be the future, or it could easily not be. Once, I had a vision during a meditation session, and I knew that a week from now, Bantha nuggets would be on the menu in the refectory. It turned out I was right." He held his hands out, "Pretty minor thing to have a vision over, right? But I've had other visions that never came to pass."

The Ubroran slumped into her chair, "That's a relief…see I had this dream, not long after we met, and much of it has come to pass. I was fighting, everyone around me was sad, the city was on fire in places, and I just felt helpless, like I was fighting but I had already lost. The vision, or dream, or whatever it was didn't last long, but…I can still remember it clearly."

"Is that why you've been acting so different lately?" Nara prodded lightly.

"Yes," Lirri replied, sniffing and wiping her nose, "I thought that if I became the best fighter possible, that maybe I could change what was happening. I also thought that because I knew so many of my…friends were doomed, that it would be best if I didn't try to befriend them, that it would be easier to deal with their deaths."

Lirri's eyes brightened, "But we can change all that now, you can train me to be like you two. Maybe I won't have a lightsaber, but if I can fight anything like a Jedi, that would help inordinately!"

"Lirri," he said calmly, "That's not why we told you that you were Force-sensitive, see Nara and I agree that…"

"You're not going to train me?" Lirri cut him off.

He shrugged helplessly, "We simply don't have the time or ability to do so. It would probably take years to even give you the groundwork to becoming a Jedi. Nara and I…we aren't teachers, or even full Jedi Knights, we are just rather young apprentices. "

Nara spoke up, "What we want from you is to wear clothes like ours, to be 'the first Ubroran Jedi.' It wouldn't even really be a lie, because you are like us, you are a child of the Force."

"You want me to be a propaganda tool," Lirri replied in a harsh tone.

Nara looked pained, but nodded. He spoke up, "We think that it would be helpful, that it might help inspire your fellow Ubrorans."

Lirri took a deep breath and then shook her head, "No. I won't go along with this plan."

He could sense Nara's disappointment, so to cover that, he nodded, "We aren't going to force you to do anything, and we are already thankful for how much you've helped us so far."

Suddenly Lirri was angry, and she rose from her seat and went into the kitchen. He looked over at Nara, who shrugged. Neither of them knew why their host had suddenly gotten so angry. Lirri returned, a moment later, a little more in control than she had been a minute ago, but still clearly upset, "How is it that you try to dictate the way that everyone lives! Do you do this everywhere you go? Does the rest of the Republic just bow to your wisdom whenever you show up?"

Nara stood, placing her tea cup carefully back on the table, "Lirri, we are just trying to do our best to keep Ubrora free from the madman that is invading, and yes, what we are doing to you is…cynical manipulation at best. But there is truth to it. You could have been a Jedi, Lirri. You could have been my sister."

Lirri stomped her foot on the floor angrily, almost causing Nara's cup of tea to fall off the table, "You are asking me to take on more risks, to make myself a bigger target. And you offer me nothing in return! What about what I want? Don't I get a say? I'm not a Jedi! I was barely dealing with fighting against these droids and now you tell me that I could have been a Jedi…it's too much, too much…."

Sascha recognized that Lirri was overwhelmed a split second before Nara did, so when the Ubroran went limp, it was him who slid on his knees to grab her as she fainted. Sascha glanced over Lirri worriedly, though he was pretty sure she had just been overwhelmed by the revelation that she was Force-sensitive, he briefly used the Force to make sure that she was okay.

Not long after she had fainted, Lirri's eyes fluttered open. "Sorry," she said, "It's just a lot to process." After a little bit, Lirri indicated that she was okay, and sat back in her chair and grabbed her tea, taking a cautious sip. Sascha tried not to notice that her hand was shaking.

The Jedi sat silently as Lirri collected herself. "I'm still not going along with this. It's not fair to me to put a big target on my back, and give me nothing in return."

"I agree," he said quietly, "We'll tell you some of what we know."

Nara visibly startled, "Sascha, Master Brynar said…"

He cut her off authoritatively, "Master Brynar can say what she likes, she's not here. We're Jedi. Jedi negotiate. I accept her terms."

Nara looked as if she had swallowed a particular bitter fruit, but in his mind, they hadn't had a choice. They needed to explore every option that they had to keep Ubrora free, and this was just one of them. Yes, he had defied his Master, but only because it was the right thing to do. He'd have to convince Nara of that, but he was sure that he could. And when Aurine confronted him about it? We'll he'd just have to see how much faith his Master really had in him.

"So, what are we waiting for? Let's get started! Teach me something." Lirri's enthusiasm was obvious, and she clearly hadn't noticed that Nara was far less gung-ho than she was.

"I think we should start with the Jedi code." He signaled Nara, and the Togruta reluctantly started reciting the Jedi Code, and he joined his voice with hers, "There is no emotion, there is peace. There is no ignorance, there is knowledge. There is no passion, there is serenity. There is no chaos, there is harmony. There is no death, there is the Force."

Lirri, wide-eyed, absorbed the words that had been recited by Jedi for thousands of years. "Let me try…There is no emotion, there is peace. There is no ignorance, there is knowledge. There is no passion, there is…peace?"

"Serenity," corrected Nara.

"There is no chaos, there is harmony. There is no death, there is the Force." The Ubroran's eyes narrowed, "What does it mean there is no death? Do the Jedi believe in an afterlife?"

"Not as such," said Nara, "We are taught not to fear death, because when we die, we return to the Force."

He spoke up, "I've stared down my own death before, and just before I was going to die…I felt serenity unlike any other experience I've ever had. I think it was a gift from the Force."

Lirri absorbed their words soberly, "It feels like I have a lot to learn. I guess it's not as simple as teaching someone to just concentrate on lifting a rock and just doing it."

"We've trained since we were very, very young to do that Lirri."

"Okay, I understand. Maybe you could send me some files on Jedi history and training. I'd love to read some before bed."

He nodded, "I'll find some files to transfer to you, but we need to remain focused at the task at hand. And that task is to make sure that your planet."

"So more fighting tomorrow?"

"More fighting until the enemy runs out of droids," he said wearily.

"So it's going to be awhile." The two Jedi nodded, subdued at the idea of further fighting.

"Well at least the Force is with us," said the Ubroran perkily.

He and Nara shared a look, wondering if that would be enough.


	31. Chapter 31: Fighting, Opportunities

**LordDarthYoda** \- Yeah, in terms of earth shattering revelations 'you could have been a superhero' is a pretty big one. And I think you've made a good point about her eagerness and how that could be a negative thing if she were to be 'cut down' as you said. I think that Nara and Sascha will be keen to protect her though

 **SpeechBubbleMe-** Sascha so rarely goes against Aurine that its a bit of a surprising moment. But I mean what could possibly go wrong...

A/N - Posting late so nothing from me...

Anyways, all reviews, follows, and favourites are deeply appreciated as always.

Please enjoy the next chapter.

* * *

 **Chapter 31: Fighting, Opportunities**

" _Though the Jedi are a constant nuisance, we are advancing inexorably towards the remaining two cities that we have not captured. Progress off our main army is slow, between the rains and the constant traps that the defenders are laying for us, but we are progressing. Perhaps soon, our struggle will be over_.

-From the Journal of Pravin Ecalt, Twelve days in to the Invasion of Ubrora

* * *

Jedi Knight Tiplee surveyed the rearguard of the droid army through macrobinoculars as it advanced through the Napier Valley. Whoever was in command of the army was proving to be a cautious commander. The rearguard was staffed with four battle tanks, several droidekas and a glut of battle droids. The droids, or whoever their commander was had chosen their terrain well, as the droids were in front of a wide open section of the valley that allowed them to spread out without being too overextended. There was also no discernible cover in the immediate area. It would be impossible to sneak up on the rearguard, impossible to draw them into a trap. Unless Tiplee had a battalion of Jedi with her and some tanks of her own, she wasn't sure that she could dislodge such a force. But she had to try.

"What's the plan, General?" her dutiful, trustworthy Lieutenant Dev, asked. Over the past week, she and the Ubroran Rangers had raided, harassed, and attacked their adversary, inflicting a reasonable amount of damage. Their casualties had been extensive though. She had left several of her wounded compatriots at a small village a few days ago under the care of a local doctor. Others had given their lives for the cause, which pained her, but that was what happened during war, sadly. Her pack was not what it was when they had left their base, and she wasn't what she had been either. A week of hard fighting, sleepless nights and minor wounds had sapped her of much of her strength. Her left wrist was bandaged, sprained after falling during a battle. Her right knee wasn't quite right either, having twisted it during a desperate attempt to avoid incoming fire.

She shook her head and lowered her macrobinoculars, "There isn't a plan in existence that would allow one Jedi Knight and ten soldiers to do any damage to that group of droids. I'm afraid that our usefulness may be at an end."

"So, it's over?"

Tiplee jumped down from her perch and took a drink of water from her pouch, the water was old and stale but at least was slightly refreshing, "It's not over because we are still alive, but this little excursion is over. I won't throw the lives of our pack into a battle we cannot win."

"Generous of you, General," muttered the Ubroran.

"I mourn those we have lost, Lieutenant. We have done good work, and delayed the enemy as much as we could. But now we must accept that we cannot do more."

This was going to go down as a loss, Tiplee knew. She had thought that by taking these elite troops and making them into a raiding force that they might inflict significant damage on the droid army, but they had never become more than just a minor nuisance. They were an annoying little instinct that stung a beast, but could not stop it from devouring its meal.

Tiplee pulled out her comlink to report her failure to Aurine. And to report that it might be time to put plan 'B' into action.

* * *

Aurine Brynar pulled her cloak around her tightly, trying to stop the torrential rain from soaking her even further. Try as she might, she had no way of fending off the rain, which had barely let up for a week now. At one point she had hoped that the rain might delay the droids enough to allow her traps to succeed. Yet, while her traps had worked to some extent, she knew that it would not be enough. As much as she continued to put herself on the front lines, she wasn't having much of an effect. Morale was plummeting because all her troops could see the same thing, death was coming up the Napier Valley, and they had no way to stop it.

As much as she was a relatively powerful Jedi Knight, she was not an army. As much as she was a great tactician, there was no way to overcome the massive numerical advantage their enemy had, unless their commander made a huge mistake. And Aurine had a grudging respect for whoever was in command of this army, he was being cautious to be sure, but he didn't need to take any risks. She wished that she was up against someone who was stupid, who made mistakes, but fate was not being kind to her.

She turned and went back inside her mobile command post. Inside were her command staff, such as they were, four harried-looking Ubrorans analyzing the information as it came to them, and one fellow human, Colonel Jeffs. "Any good news?" she asked.

Glum faces answered her, "We lost contact with Guardian squad a few minutes ago."

Guardian squad was one of the 'active duty' squads that were currently harassing the enemy. "Where? I'll lead the rescue operation."

"There is nothing to rescue, Dovetail squad confirms that there is no one left."

Aurine sat heavily in her chair. An entire squad of soldiers had died and she hadn't even sensed it. She had closed herself off from the Force gradually since the war started, the rawness of the emotions around her meant that she could not deal with all the energy around her. But still, she should have been able to know or feel that Ubrorans, her troops, were dying and she was doing nothing to stop it.

Aurine Brynar was losing more than just the war, she was losing herself.

* * *

Sascha Whitestar waited beside Nara and a squad of resistance fighters for a droid response team to show itself in this corridor. Ten minutes ago they had annihilated a patrol with their usual ease, and now, if their intel had been correct, a response team of droids would have been sent out from the main base to see if there was anything left to salvage of the patrol.

There wasn't of course, he, Nara and some resistance forces had made short work of the eight battle droid patrol. Yet, he and Nara felt that they needed to make a little more impact than taking out two or three patrols a day, they needed to make an impact on the numbers of droids in the city. And luring a larger force to its destruction was one way to make an impact.

Sascha answered his ringing comlink, "Yes?"

"Master Jedi, it's Arslan. I'm watching a droid force moving towards you. They…uh…they have a tank."

Sascha sent a silent thank you to whichever Ubroran had started broadcasting their video feeds to the rest of Ubrora, because it made it a lot easier to track what the droids were doing, "Thanks Arslan, we'll see you back at Headquarters."

"Aren't you going to abort the mission? I said they have a tank!"

Sascha shrugged, "They are about to have one less tank, Arslan." He clicked off the comlink.

"What's this I hear about aborting the mission?" asked Lirri who had saddled up beside him to hear the end of comlink discussion.

Nara snorted, "Don't worry, we aren't aborting. Not a chance. The droids having a tank with them doesn't change the equation. A droideka...those are trouble. But a battle tank is pretty useless against us. Tanks are built to fight armies, they aren't good against insurgents." The Togruta turned to him, "Sascha, do you have a plan?"

He smiled, "Don't I always have a plan?"

A few minutes later, he and Nara were perched on a nearby rooftop, waiting for the detachment of droids to make their way to them. The rest of the resistance fighters, including Lirri, were hiding around the corner, waiting for their signal to emerge. He tapped his fingers nervously against his upper arm. The fighting never worried him, it was the moments before the fight that were the hardest to endure.

After a couple of nervous minutes, the droids made their appearance. There were about fifteen or so battle droids flanking a large, impressive looking Armored Assault Tank, which were set to walk down the street just in front of them. Its main armament was a turreted laser cannon that gave the tank a 360 degree range of fire. The secondary armaments were side mounted laser blasters that had a much more narrow range of fire. He and Nara were going to get rid of both of those weapons.

The two Jedi closed their eyes, before they began. They required perfect concentration for this task and visual stimulus was always so distracting. Surreptitiously, the Jedi ignited their lightsabers. They had already made a silent decision that Sascha would take the easier task, and Nara the more difficult one. Simply put, Nara was stronger than he was in the Force and had a better control of telekinesis. Usually this didn't matter, but today it might.

Turning blindly, because their eyes were still closed, the two Padawans trusted in the Force and threw their lightsabers towards the tank. Using the Force, Sascha directed his whirling teal blade towards the side-mounted laser cannons on the near side of the tank, while Nara's was being pointed towards the main turret and gun on the other side of th tank. In the Force, he felt his teal blade cut easily through the side cannon, chopping it neatly in two. Concentrating deeply still, he recalled his blade towards his hand, and he felt it smack back into his palm. Opening his eyes, he saw Nara's gold and silver lightsaber hilt float gently into her outstretched hand. He could tell by her expression, that she had managed her task perfectly.

"Good stuff Nara."

"You too."

"Let's finish the job."

The Togruta gestured towards him grandiosely, "After you, little human."

The battle tank was now just an armored battering ram. Intimidating, but functionally useless, assuming one had the wherewithal to move out of the not particularly fast moving or tank. Sascha signaled Lirri and her resistance fighters and he jumped down into the stunned battle droid formation, Nara right beside him, her blue eyes showing off their usual determination.

The droids were now caught between two Jedi carving them up and a menagerie of resistance fighters firing blasters at them. A droid with better programming would have realized that they were dead to rights already and would have tried to inflict as many casualties as possible against the Ubroran fighters. However, as they had proved numerous times before, battle droids just weren't that smart. They focused their fire on the Jedi because they were the closest targets and because the droids could only categorize them as 'melee attackers.' Usually beings that attacked with melee weapons would have been vulnerable to blaster fire…but Jedi were much less concerned by blaster fire, especially from such a paltry numbers of droids.

The battle, already over before it had started, ended perfectly for the Jedi and their allies. With the battle droids destroyed, the two Jedi used their lightsabers destructively, making sure that this particular battle tank would no longer be operational for a long, long time. Sascha jammed his lightsaber through the engine compartment, doing what was probably thousands of credits in damage. It made him feel like a little vandal, which was a weird thing for a Jedi apprentice to feel. But this mission had been full of a lot of weird feelings.

Now safely ensconced back in Lirri's house, he, Nara, Arslan and Lirri were discussing the day's events. While it had been a good day in that they had caused damage to the droid army without having any setbacks beyond the minor scrapes that a few resistance fighters had accumulated, mostly from throwing themselves into cover too vigorously, they needed to make sure that they weren't missing something obvious.

The meeting went fairly quickly, Lirri was the de-facto leader of the Ubroran resistance, but wasn't tactically savvy enough to offer many insights, yet. Yet the Ubrorans were equal partners, whenever they would voice something, he and Nara would always consider their suggestions and say why they were wrong. The two Jedi had to educate their hosts on the art of war, and they could only do that through explanation.

"Okay, anything else?" he asked, hoping to end the meeting so he could talk with Nara for a bit before turning in for the night.

"I have something I'd like to report," said Arslan. "I'm getting rumors through some of my connections in the broadcasting community that the droid army is building a communications centre in Bontha. Some functionary has contacted some of my engineer friends about installing a very high tech communications grid that I assume would be used to coordinate their droid army from the ground."

"Interesting," he said, "It would be a useful military target…but the second that the ground communications falters, the droids will revert to their primary mode of communications, with the _Reprisal_ which is in orbit." And if they could some how take _that_ out, the army would shut down. But he may as well have hoped to win the Megacredit lottery on Coruscant without buying a ticket.

"That's the wrong way to think about it, Sascha," said Nara, "think about what kind of hardware they'd need to build a communications centre. If we could steal a transmitter we maybe could construct something that could punch through the jamming from the _Reprisal_."

"I don't know how to build a transmitter that powerful, Nara. And dare I say, neither do you."

Nara looked unhappy, but nodded in agreement.

"If I may," interjected Arslan, "I have some knowledge of how modern communications devices work, and I have friends amongst the communications techs of Bontha. If given the correct equipment, we might be able to fashion something that might get through the jamming."

"There was a lot of hypotheticals in that statement, Arslan," Nara pointed out.

The Ubroran shrugged, "I offer hypotheticals when there is uncertainty."

"What are the chances that it's a trap?" asked Nara.

"It's probably pretty high," he admitted, "There is no reason for Vash Varless to build a communications centre here. Specifically it makes no sense to build one here and not in Gamudo, a city they control. It doesn't make logical sense, except as a trap to draw us out."

"Still, if it isn't…" said Nara.

Both Jedi dropped into silent contemplation. How much of a risk could they afford to take to get a message through to the Republic, to the Jedi Council? If they managed to get anything through… a task force of Jedi Knights could be dispatched within hours, and Vash Varless' pirates couldn't hope to stand against a concerted Jedi force.

But if it was a trap…

"I guess we ask Master Brynar about it," concluded Nara unhappily. Sascha nodded in agreement. He understood her disappointment. As much as they had been given a great deal of independence since the invasion started, they were still just merely apprentices and when making such big decisions it made sense to ask his Master.

"Do you want us to leave the room?" asked Lirri.

Sascha waved away her concern, "No, it's fine. This concerns the resistance, so it concerns both of you, so you should be here to have your voices heard. We're all in this together after all," he added. He pulled out his comlink and dialed for his Master, hoping that she would be around to give them an answer to their question. She'd answer eventually, he knew, but he was hoping that he would catch her at a convenient time from…whatever exactly she was doing.

"Yes, Padawan?" answered Aurine.

"Hi Master, I have Nara, Lirri and Arslan here so I'm going to put it on speaker." After he pressed the small button on his device, which allowed it to operate as a speakerphone, he continued, "Arslan has found evidence that the droids are going to be building a communications tower here in Bontha."

"What's the source?" asked Master Brynar.

Arslan cleared his throat awkwardly before speaking, "I have gathered the information from what I believe are reliable sources. Based on the number of confirming reports I've received from several different engineers, I believe the intel is good. Whether or not it's being planted by someone…I frankly don't have the experience to say."

"And what do you plan to do with this communications centre? Blow it up?" asked Aurine.

"Well, I was thinking," said Nara, leaning towards the tiny transmitter, "That if we raid this facility, and we could get the right parts, we could maybe build a transmitter of our own, something powerful enough that we could get a message through the jamming and to Coruscant."

"Do you think that's possible?"

"I'd say it's a possibility," said Nara.

"I don't know, Padawans, this seems like a trap," observed Aurine.

"It does," Sascha admitted, "But if it isn't, and we could end the war within a fortnight."

"What does the Force tell you?" inquired his Master.

He bit his lip, he hadn't had much instruction or guidance from the Force since they'd landed on Ubrora. That wasn't entirely out of character for him, but he found it rather annoying. This was perhaps the toughest test he had ever faced as a Padawan, and yet the Force was silent. Wonderful. He glanced over at Nara who slowly shook her head. "Neither Nara nor myself seem to have received any guidance from the Force."

Aurine was silent for long moments. Finally, she spoke again, "I sense…danger, but opportunity in your future, Padawan. I think, that perhaps this is the opportunity in your future. Take your time and be careful in planning your mission, Padawan, but I believe that the risks outweigh the potential benefits. You have my go-ahead to undertake this task."

Sascha probably should have been excited by that statement, by the faith that was being placed in him, but instead he felt a cold, hard, lump form in the pit of his stomach. He clapped his hands together to cover his discomfort, "Okay, we'll get started right away on planning. We'll let you know if anything changes."

"Message me your final plan for me to confirm. May the Force be with you." And with a click, she was gone. For a moment, he felt a deep sense of loss. He hadn't seen his Master for almost a fortnight now, and he missed Aurine. She was always a steadying influence for him, and while he had thought he had been ready to display some independence, it was times like these that he missed her presence and her wisdom dearly.

"So," said Lirri, "how many fighters do you want to take with you? I'd have to take an official count, but I think we can bring quite a few resistance fighters with you Jedi. We may not be the best, but we'll fight hard."

"I don't think we can ask you to take this on," Nara said, echoing his own thoughts. "The resistance fighters are too new, too green to be going on a mission like this. This feels like a mission for just Sascha and I."

He nodded in agreement, "I think that the best use of the resistance at this point is as a distraction, try to deplete the garrisons that the droids have so that maybe we don't run into as much opposition. We are going to need stealth to succeed."

Lirri looked unhappy at being left out of the action, but nodded, "It will be as you wish. We'll make a nuisance of ourselves tomorrow. Arlsan, help me plan out what targets to hit." Lirri and Arslan left the table, already in animated discussion.

"So Nara," he said casually, "Are you ready to walk into this trap?"

"Isn't walking into traps what we do as Jedi?"

He scratched behind his ear in a nervous gesture, "I suppose. This one feel different for some reason."

"Scared of a few droids?" Nara teased.

"You know I'm not afraid of droids, Nara."

The Togruta playfully reached out to punch his shoulder, "you sure?"

He rolled his eyes at Nara's attempt to lighten the mood, "Let's get down to planning."

Nara shrugged languidly and kicked her feet up on the table, "What's to plan? We pick a time to attack…then we attack."

"Let's see if we can put just a little more effort into it than that."

Nara brought her booted feet down, "Fine. You always were the diligent one."

He and Nara planned throughout the night, evaluating contingencies, running through scenarios and double and triple checking the route they would take to the communications tower. They pored over their datapads, trying to identify what they would need to steal to have any chance at making a working transmitter that would be powerful enough to punch through the jamming from the _Reprisal_. Finally, with bleary eyes they slept, knowing that tomorrow was a crucial day, both for themselves and for Ubrora.

* * *

Sascha hefted the empty backpack he was carrying, trying to judge it's weight and how much it might slow him down. It didn't weigh much right now, but if they had to carry equipment it might be a significant obstacle later on.

He looked over towards Nara, who was adjusting her boots, "Ready?" he asked.

"I was born ready," replied Nara, a wan expression on her face. Both of them were feeling the tension of what could be the turning point in invasion of Ubrora. If they could steal the parts they needed help could soon be on the way, help that they so desperately needed. They were also clearly putting their lives in danger as well. The two of them fully believed that the communications tower that was being modified was on some level, a trap. Yet that angular, three-storey building could be where they saved Ubrora, or where they perished.

"Come on, Whitestar," said Nara, giving him a friendly slap on the back, "let's make this fun, whoever disables the most droids is the winner."

He raised an eyebrow at Nara, "really? This is what you've been thinking about all day?"

"Sure. I see you aren't too thrilled at this idea, how about if I spot you a five droid lead."

"I don't need an advantage to keep up with you," he retorted playfully.

"Sure you don't."

"You haven't even said what the winner of this 'contest' gets."

"Don't worry, it's an unbelievable prize of unimaginable value."

"Wow, seems like something I really want to win," he said sarcastically.

"So you're in?"

"You betcha."

Nara started off towards the communications tower. He took a deep breath, calmed himself and followed her into the unknown.


	32. Chapter 32: Consequences

**LordDarthYoda** \- If it walks like a duck, talks like a duck...it's a duck. Sascha and Nara are just willing to take the risk that whatever trap is being planned isn't quite enough to ensnare two Jedi.

 **SpeechBubbleMe-** I love Ackbar! Unfortunately he's right (It's a trap!)

 **thejoker122 -** Odds are you are right!

A/N - The nice thing about writing fanfiction is that it is detached from reality. I kind of wish this was a happier chapter, because I think some people would like to read a happy chapter about now. Unfortunately, my works are about putting my characters through hell (sorry!).

Anyways, all reviews, follows, and favourites are deeply appreciated as always.

Please enjoy the next chapter.

* * *

 **Chapter 32: Consequences**

" _I had set the trap perfectly, and lured the Padawans into my trap. All I had to do was give the order to fire and the two young Jedi would be blown off the map. But I paused. The Jedi just looked so young, and they were only doing their duty. It's the hardest part of the job as a soldier to take the lives of his enemies. I just wished there was a cleaner, more compassionate way to do it. But there wasn't. So I gave the order to fire._

 _A good soldier follows orders though, no matter how disgusted he is by them. And I am nothing if not a good soldier. Sometimes I do hate this job though."_

-From the Journal of Pravin Ecalt, Thirteen days in to the Invasion of Ubrora

* * *

Arslan Ivalice watched pensively from a distance as the two young Jedi carved through a squad of battle droids. They made it look so easy. Watching the Jedi fight the droids was like watching poetry come to life. The Jedi didn't fight so much as dance, moving with incredible grace and ease. It was like their opponents moved in slow motion.

But Arslan wasn't pensive because of this fight; no he'd be surprised if the Jedi broke a sweat the fight against the droids, he was worried because they were acting on intelligence that he had provided. So if something went wrong, it was his fault. Even though the Jedi had said that they thought it was a trap and were still going anyways, it made Arslan's stomach roil to think about what would happen if his intelligence led to the deaths of the two brave young Jedi apprentices. The Jedi just meant so much to Ubrora and the resistance in general. They were their best fighters, their moral code, and perhaps impossibly, Arslan considered them his friends. He wasn't sure that the Jedi would say the same, but they _were_ friendly towards him.

The young human and the young Togruta finished slicing the battle droids into useless parts and quickly made their way towards the building that was housing the new communications tower. So much for stealth, Arslan supposed. From when he had overheard the Jedi planning their mission, Sascha had been the one more in favour of stealth whereas Nara favoured a direct attack. He supposed that Nara's plan had won out in the end.

From his safe hiding spot inside a nearby house, he glanced around at the small reserve force that the Jedi had left behind to help them out if they called for it. He, Lirri and a handful of other Ubrorans were all the 'reserve' that could be called upon if the Jedi needed help, and he wasn't really much of a fighter. He preferred the background, preferred leading from behind a desk. His brain, his experience and knowledge made him useful to the resistance, he was only here today because the resistance was still badly shorthanded. If he had to fire his rifle today, it was probably something had gone horribly wrong.

He was just bringing up a datapad that would have allowed him and his fellow resistance members to watch the Jedi's broadcast, which had been set to private, of course, only those with the password, like Arslan, could view it. Then from outside he heard something that started as a low rumbling, but quickly gained in volume. A half second later, the floor started shaking. Then after a brief moment, it stopped. Arslan suddenly remembered when he had felt something similar, it bore a striking resemblance to when he had been passing alongside that school that suddenly had exploded…

 _Oh no. Please don't tell me..._

Lirri was on her feet in a flash, and unconsciously, he rose to follow her. Despite being dressed in tan robes that were unlike any clothing that a normal Ubroran would wear, Lirri commanded with an air of authority that did not need words. Lirri didn't need to say 'follow me,' everyone just did.

The Ubrorans all rushed out of their hiding spot, and Arslan was able to see what had happened. The communications tower was a smoking ruin, only the first floor remained slightly intact. What was left of the building was blackened and on fire in numerous places. Pieces of the building still were floating gently to the ground in an almost mockery of the destruction that had been unleashed. Whatever had hit the communications tower had been absolutely huge.

But maybe, Arslan hoped, the Padawans hadn't reached the tower by the time it exploded. Then, he froze in place, for his eyes saw something he hoped he would never witness. Lying unmoving, and unconscious on the ground, just in front of the remains of the communication tower were the two Jedi. Coming to finish them off from the opposite direction was a company of battle droids.

A deep, primal fear struck at the heart of Arslan Ivalice. Death was coming directly towards him, and his evolutionary instincts told him to abandon his friends and flee in the opposite direction with whatever speed he could conjure. He was still frozen in panic when he saw Lirri racing towards the droids and the downed Jedi, blaster rifle in hand. Lirri fired her rifle as she ran, screaming a guttural war cry.

Arslan wanted to flee in terror, he really did, but seeing the Jedi defenceless on the ground had galvanized something deep inside of him and he screamed. His scream wasn't as much of a war cry as Lirri's, it was more of a scream of abject horror, a scream at the idea he had abandoned all rationality for the vain hope that they could save the two Jedi, if they were still alive at all. He charged towards the oncoming battle droids.

Arslan had taken more than a dozen long strides when he realized that he had left his weapon behind in the house. Oops. He _really_ wasn't much of a soldier. But that didn't matter right now, all he wanted to do was get the two Jedi and get out.

Shots rang out around him. From behind him, the Ubrorans were firing wildly, and incoming fire was starting to come in from the incoming battle droids. The fire from both sides was wildly inaccurate. Arslan kept his head down and his movements varied, making himself a difficult target. He may not have been a fighter, but he knew how to listen to instructions.

He gained a remarkable amount of ground in a short amount of time, whether that was the adrenaline or survival instincts kicking in he wasn't sure. The fire from behind him seemed pitiful compared to the incoming fire, but at least the droids were still too far away to get a good read on their targets.

Lirri reached where the two Jedi had fallen first but she did not bend down to check on them, she simply laid a withering hail of cover fire towards the oncoming droids. Several fell from her efforts. Arslan was the next to reach the Jedi and he felt himself pale as he looked down at them. Nara seemed to be in worse shape of the pair, her eyes were closed and her breathing was barely discernible. Her limbs were akimbo, she had several deep gashes, including one across her forehead, and one down her right thigh where her robe had been ripped away, revealing the bare skin underneath. Her delicate montrals had a deep cut on them as well, and there was blood on her robe from numerous other cuts that he could not see.

Sascha was unconscious as well. There was a long laceration down his right arm that was bleeding heavily and there was a deep gash along his leg. His robe was dashed in innumerable places and it was more red than gray. His breathing came with a wheezing rattle from his lungs, which Arslan assumed was not very good.

Arslan grabbed Nara, pressing his right hand against the gash in her leg, and ran in the other direction. He saw Sekac lifting Sascha before turning to run as well. A third Ubroran he didn't know grabbed their fallen lightsabers. The rest of the resistance fighters provided cover fire for a second before following them all in an extremely hasty retreat.

Arslan marveled at how light the Togruta felt in his arms. He wasn't a big Ubroran by any definition, and though Nara was taller than he was, she seemed to weigh almost nothing in his arms. He wondered if that was the adrenaline again. He kept his had pressed against the gash in her leg, when he looked down, his hand was covered with blood. Arslan commanded himself to not think about what that meant and to just keep running.

The resistance fighters that had stayed and fought briefly and Lirri passed him and Sekac who were carrying the Jedi. A short while later he and Sekac were directed him to a house that he did not recognize. Finally, his muscles seemed to strain and as he got inside, it was all he could do but to lay Nara on the ground beside her fellow Jedi. Quickly the other Ubrorans started bandaging their wounds, but he instantly knew that would not be enough.

Sascha's breathing was still laboured, and it seemed to be getting worse. Nara's dark purple skin was paling quickly and the Ubrorans treating her had to switch out the towels they were using to keep pressure on her wounds with alarming frequency. The Jedi seemed like such fragile little beings laid out on the floor. Without their supernatural, ethereal presence, they were just two lightly built aliens, hardly unlike the warriors that they had been minutes ago. It seems when you came right down to it, the Jedi were indeed mortal. It finally seemed to dawn on Arslan that these two Jedi were just teenagers really. Just kids.

"They aren't going to make it, are they?" someone said quietly from behind him. An uncomfortable silence broke out over the room, only Sascha's rasping breathing seemed to make any noise at all.

Lirri rose from where she had been bandaging Nara's leg, and pointed at two Ubrorans, "Facie, Strava, go to the hospital and bring back some doctors, I don't care if you have to bring them at gunpoint just get them here." Two young Ubrorans nodded and swiftly exited.

"But how will they know how to heal them," he said evenly, "We don't know how different human or Togruta physiology is from our own."

Lirri snapped her fingers as if she had just realized something at that very moment, "Their comlinks! We can use them to talk to their Masters. They'll have medical information available, I'm sure of it."

Small Ubroran paws searched the belts and pockets of the unconscious Jedi. Lirri pulled out a comlink from Nara's badly scarred belt, but as she did, it sparked and wires fell from it. Sekac, who had knelt beside Sascha pulled out his comlink and handed it to him.

He examined the device quickly and came to an understanding of how it worked. It was actually not all that different from some of the comlinks that were produced here on Ubrora, fortunately. He found the number for Aurine Brynar, who he had shared some brief conversations with earlier, and dialed. The Jedi Knight answered almost immediately, "Brynar here, what happened?"

His throat suddenly went dry, how was he supposed to deliver the news that her apprentice was on the brink of death? Suddenly charging towards battle droids seemed like the second hardest thing he'd done today. He found his voice, it quavered as he spoke, but the important thing was he was speaking. "Uh, Master Brynar, there has been an, uh, accident."

"I know my apprentice has been hurt, just tell me his condition," Aurine replied testily.

He tried to speak, but he felt faint. A lifetime of working behind the scenes in newsrooms had not prepared him for delivering such bad news.

Lirri grabbed the comlink away from him, "Sascha and Nara are both unconscious and have sustained serious injuries. I've sent for doctors, but…I don't…I don't know if they'll make it..."

There was a very long silence in which Arslan could almost imagine the despair on the other end of the line, yet when Aurine spoke again, her voice was strong, unwavering, "I'll send you all the files I have on human and Togruta physiology, it should help the doctors when they arrive." Another pause, "Sascha and Nara are very strong, they are Jedi. If anyone can make it, they will. Please keep me updated." The line went dead.

Lirri went back to bandaging Nara's wounds, cleaning the ones that she could and all in all, doing everything she could. Arslan, just leaned against the wall in shock, too stunned to realize that his paws were still matted with blood.

Not half a minute later, he and Lirri's datapad buzzed, indicating a file transfer from the Jedi Knight. He quickly scanned the file, but it mostly contained medical jargon that was far beyond his understanding, though he assumed it would make sense to the doctors, if they ever came. He spared another glance at the Jedi, Sascha had paled considerably from when he had looked over, minutes ago, though his wounds had been mostly patched, it seemed like he might have given too much of his blood for Ubrora.

Nara was in dire straits. He saw Lirri looking for a pulse on the Togruta's right wrist and she was having trouble finding one. That was the final straw for him. He just couldn't watch this. As he exited the impromptu medical ward, he almost collided with a trio of incoming doctors. Mechanically, he handed one of them his datapad with the medical information on it.

Arslan couldn't watch the doctors go to work, he didn't have the stomach for it. He didn't have much experience with death, but he was a newsman, he had seen it. He knew that those two Jedi were teetering on the brink of death. A skilled doctor, operating with a full complement of nurses and the latest in medical technology on hand might have been able to save them. These three doctors had been dragged from a hospital with barely any equipment, and asked to heal a pair of aliens that they had never treated before. It seemed like nothing short of a miracle would save Sascha and Nara. Arslan, being a reporter, a being of logic, knew that when you were praying for a miracle, you had basically accepted that things were beyond your control, that you needed some sort of divine intervention to save the day. And usually that intervention didn't come.

Outside, where the remainder of the resistance had gathered, the mood was eerily similar to a funeral. As he emerged, he was bombarded by questions about how the Jedi were doing. He didn't have the heart to answer them truthfully. Or at all.

A few of the older Ubrorans knew what that meant, and the despair spread across the room quickly. "It's over then," said someone, "the droids will conquer Ubrora. We'll be a colony world to some mad despot."

"No. It's not over," said Lirri. Arslan hadn't heard her follow him out of the room.

"Without the Jedi we are nothing," said that same Ubroran.

Lirri marched up to the Ubroran who had spoken, a young male that was maybe twenty, and slapped him across the face. "How _dare_ you say that, and now of all times." Lirri stared at young man furiously, there was a wildness to her eyes that he had never seen before, "The Jedi fought, bled, and maybe died for us, for a planet they had been on for less than a week before this started. And now Hassaq, you repay their sacrifice by saying that it is _over?_ Get out of my sight!"

The chastened young man quickly scurried out of the way, his tail puffed out in distress. Lirri continued to command the floor, looking around and making eye contact with everyone in the room. "This fight continues until we are free from oppressors, free from tyrants, free from the droids! It doesn't matter if we have Jedi or not! This is our world! Our City! Do we want to fight for it?"

"But we can't win," said an older Ubroran cautiously.

Lirri moved to the speaker, moving with a predatory grace that was very unlike an Ubroran. "Ah, Ovans. You've suddenly become an expert in military tactics? Or perhaps can you see the future?" Ovans looked down in defeat. Lirri continued to speak in a low, but powerful voice, "this is not about winning or losing, it's about fighting for what is important. The Jedi knew this, even though they had been taken from their parents as younglings. They _know_ that freedom is the most important thing in the galaxy. What are we if we don't fight for ours?"

"Yeah!" cried someone. Arslan was shocked to find that he had been the person that had cried out in support. In fairness, it had been a strange, nerve-wracking day, and Lirri was a great speaker.

"Our Ubrora. Our city. Our fight." Lirri said, her tone strong, catching the eye of everyone in the room.

"Yeah!" yelled a number of Ubrorans.

Lirri pointed directly at him, "Will you fight?"

"I will."

Lirri turned to the Ubroran next to him, "Will you fight?"

"Yes."

Lirri went around the room asking each Ubroran in the room if they would fight. She skipped no one. By the end, an odd sort of confidence had emerged in the room. Lirri's magnetic presence had somehow galvanized something deep inside of the generally peaceful Ubrorans. The resistance may have been formed with the promise of working with the Jedi, but right now they were ready to die for Lirri Boikana.

The young leader of the resistance moved to the middle of the room, "We are the resistance. As long as we live. Ubrora can be free."

A wild cheer echoed throughout the house and into the streets. Arslan hoped that whoever was commanding the droids heard their cheer and a little chill went down their spine.

* * *

"That was a good speech Lirri."

Lirri smiled sadly, "It needed to be done, the resistance was dying in that very room…and I just couldn't let that happen."

It was hours later. The dead of night. Most of the members of the resistance had left returned to their homes. The doctors were still operating on the Jedi. Sometimes one of them would come out and request a tool or device and someone would be sent to retrieve it. No one dared ask how the Jedi were doing. Everyone assumed that because the doctors were still working, that there was some hope for them. That meant at least one of them was still alive. Sometimes it was better not to know the details and cling to hope as hard as possible.

"What will we do if they don't survive?" he asked softly.

"The same thing we'll do if they live," said Lirri, quietly but passionately, "we'll fight." He nodded, he hadn't really expected another answer, but was making conversation for the sake of it. Lirri wasn't done though, "I'll need your help Arslan. I'll lead the fighting, I know you are no good at that, but I need someone to help keep things organized. I can't think of a better person than you."

Arslan was flattered, and was about to voice that opinion when a doctor emerged from the impromptu medical ward, his head shaking slowly. The hope that remained seemed to dissipate in a second. Arslan looked down, his heart felt like it weighed five hundred pounds in his chest. He had provided the Jedi with the information that killed them. He decided if it was the last thing he would do, he would try to avenge those two apprentices.

"What's the news, Harstem?" asked Lirri.

The doctor paused for a second, "I think that they will make it," the doctor said in a disbelieving voice. "Those two Jedi are remarkable creatures, truly. They both lost a lot of blood, and had serious injuries, but they seem to be getting better. They won't be in fighting shape for a long time, but I think they'll live."

A cheer went up amongst the few that had waited to hear the news. Lirri hugged Arslan tightly, so tight that his ribs were protesting. He didn't voice a word of protest. Lirri, although several years his junior, was a very striking member of his species, and he was quite infatuated with the way she had spoken earlier today. He tried very hard to supress those feelings, given the somber nature of this moment.

Lirri broke the embrace and grabbed the doctor in what must have been a similarly crushing hug, "Miss Boikana…really…ow," said the doctor, and abashedly, Lirri released him.

"Thank you for what you have done here Harstem. We might have need of you again."

The older doctor nodded, "You can have my comlink code, but next time, try not to remove me forcefully from where I am working, okay? I am sympathetic to your resistance, but my job comes first. One of us will watch over the Jedi until they wake."

Harstem and Lirri continued their conversation, but it didn't interest him. Instead, he walked over to the room that contained the two Jedi. Inside, the two Jedi were lying on makeshift beds. Both had been heavily bandaged and dressed in whatever spare Ubroran clothing that they could find that fit them, which gave them a different appearance than usual. They were still unconscious and pale, but both seemed to be breathing fine. The Jedi seemed to have their ethereal presence back as well, they no longer seemed frail, despite their physical appearance and the fact that hours ago he didn't think they would make it through the night.

Arslan exited the house and walked into the cool Ubroran night, thanking a god that he did not believe in for providing this miracle.


	33. Chapter 33: Broadcasts

**LordDarthYoda** \- The Ubrorans are going to have to step up for their planet, and we're going to see them do just that in this upcoming chapter. While its fun to watch Nara and Sascha cut up some droids, it does get a bit repetitive. It's going to allow the Jedi some character development, but it will bring the Ubrorans into the spotlight as well.

 **SpeechBubbleMe-** As long as you were worried about Sascha and Nara than that chapter did its job! It's hard to write legitimate danger for characters when they have huge plot armor, but sometimes you gotta remind people that he's not invincible!

A/N - I have nothing.

Anyways, all reviews, follows, and favourites are deeply appreciated as always.

Please enjoy the next chapter.

* * *

 **Chapter 33: Broadcasts**

" _The war is reaching its endpoint. Our army continues to make headway, though slowly, through the Napier Valley. The resistance forces have been dealt a major blow by the loss of the two Jedi apprentices, which no longer seem to have the ability to contest control of Bontha. In a few days the Ubroran army will have no choice but to engage our main force. That is a battle I am confident in winning."_

-From the Journal of Pravin Ecalt, Fourteen days in to the Invasion of Ubrora

* * *

The next day, Arslan prepared his house for a meeting of the most 'important' people in the resistance. Lirri was the leader, obviously, but Ubrorans like Sekac and Ovans were important leaders in their own way. The four of them were essentially the backbone of the resistance at this point, with the Jedi incapacitated for the foreseeable future. Arslan had checked in on them today, but both Sascha and Nara had been asleep. While Harstem believed that the Jedi would make a full recovery, he had also warned him that their recovery would be quite slow.

Arslan looked up from his busywork as his guests started arriving. Lirri arrived first, looking energized and ready to take the fight to their enemy. Her blue and purple hair was tied into a surprisingly martial-looking ponytail, and she wore robes that made her look like a Jedi, they were tan and brown, surprisingly dour clothes for someone her age. Sekac arrived next. In his mid-twenties and cold-eyed, the former hunter wasn't a big talker, but when he did speak, his words carried weight. Ovans was the last to arrive, he was older, in his early thirties, and dressed with his usual flair. Arslan had his doubts about Ovans, he'd generally considered the man too concerned about himself to be of use to the resistance. That was until he personally recruited twenty members to the resistance. If anything, that got him a seat at this table – his kitchen table to be exact. Good looking and outgoing, Ovans continued to dress with flair, wearing a bright orange shirt that was more suited for a night at the cantina than a war council.

The four Ubrorans sat around his table upon which he had set up a platter of treats as well as pitchers of juice and tea. It was probably wasted effort on the current company, but he knew that his extremely fastidious mother would have approved. Arslan was just glad that she wasn't around to see what had become of her planet.

Before he could start the meeting, Ovans smiled sarcastically at Lirri, "Dressing like a Jedi, Lirri? Well someone has to replace them, why not you?"

"I am a Jedi, Ovans."

Arslan blinked rapidly, something had definitely changed in Lirri a few days ago, almost exactly when she had started wearing those robes that were patterned after what the Jedi had worn. He had assumed that Lirri was just trying to start a fashion trend or dress in clothes that were more suited for combat, but was she really asserting that she was in any way like a Jedi?

Lirri stood from her chair, "I know what you all must be thinking, you must think that I've lost my mind."

"We didn't think that," he said.

"Quiet, Arslan."

Chastised, he made himself look busy by stirring the teapot and getting the cups from the kitchen.

Lirri continued, "Nara and Sascha pulled me aside a few days ago and told me that like them, I possessed the power to manipulate the Force. I don't want to make you believe that I can fight like them or even levitate things like they can, but I have…some of what they can do."

The three other Ubrorans looked at each other in confusion. Ovans broke the confused silence with a derisive snort, "Well that's convenient, I guess. 'Hey look, I'm a Jedi, but I can't do any of their super-powered stuff, so you'll just have to believe me until they wake up.' Is this some sort of power play, Lirri? Are you threatened by me? I can form my own resistance, I'm sure it won't be…"

"That's quite enough, Ovans," he said, trying to head off what was clearly going to be a fight between Ovans and Lirri.

Ovans was not done though, "I don't think it is enough, I didn't sign up to be led by some crazy lady who decided that after her Jedi friends got hurt, that their powers transferred to her somehow."

Lirri was out of her seat in a flash and was halfway to Ovans, probably to smack him upside the head, when Sekac spoke, "Does it really matter?" said Sekac quietly, "does it matter if she wears a robe and thinks she's a Jedi or not? The enemy is the droids. Not each other."

"No," he agreed, "It doesn't matter. Perhaps we should get down to business. Or maybe your petty feud is more important than the planet?"

Lirri had a last glare for Ovans, but she settled back into her seat, "Ubrora comes first."

Happy that things had settled down for now, Arslan began the briefing that he had laboriously prepared this morning, "Based on the surveillance that I have been doing, along with subcontracting it to some of my other friends, I've found that the droids seem to have set up a perimeter that they are guarding." He pulled out a map of Bontha, it was one that tourists got to see all the sights of the city on a vacation so all the landmarks were laid out in exaggerated fashion across the city. He'd tried to have found a better map, but he hadn't been able to. All maps these days were for datapads, no one wanted to use a physical map anymore.

Ovans snickered when he saw the map that was being laid on the table, and even Sekac smiled slightly. Lirri remained impassive and as soon as she understood his markings, she began analyzing the map in detail. He spoke, striving for a dignified, academic tone, "The droids seemed to have carved out an area that they are patrolling, but leaving the rest of the city free from their presence. The droids have focused on controlling the downtown area, which makes sense as it contains most of our banks, food processing plants, and of course the spaceport and the capital building."

"The droid patrols are unpredictable, they vary in size and their exact route, but they stay within the perimeter which I've indicated. That means to my mind, the droids are somewhat predictable in their unpredictability." He closed his eyes briefly, "I'm not a tactician, I don't know anything about war, so I leave it up to you three to decide what we should do." The honest truth was that none of them were tacticians. But the last time Arslan had provided someone with advice regarding this conflict, two Jedi had nearly died, so he was not going to be offering his opinion on things, unless asked specifically.

Sekac spoke first, "I suppose its a problem that the droids control a huge section of the city. Do we want access to anything in that area controlled by the droids? It contains our most important buildings, true, but nothing we can't do without."

Lirri shook her head in disagreement, "By letting the droids have access to the main part of Bontha, they are projecting strength. If we sit back and do nothing, the perception will be that the droid army is in control. Even our little raids will not be enough to sway public opinion on that front."

Ovans leaned back in his chair, "So are you suggesting we do something dramatic to change that perception?"

Lirri smiled, "Very dramatic. Arslan, what news network has been the most vocal in denouncing the resistance?"

"Uh, EUN, they've aired several interviews with your father, who as…uh, I'm sure you know is perhaps the most notable person that is opposing what we are doing. As the mayor, he holds a fair amount of sway on public opinion. I've been getting my colleagues at UNN to run pro-resistance stories, but they don't appear to be moving public opinion in any meaningful way."

Lirri grinned, a savage grin on her face, "Perhaps it might be time for EUN to see what the cost of helping the invaders is. Arslan, is the EUN broadcast center inside or outside the droid perimeter?"

"Just outside," he answered, looking at the map just to confirm.

Grin unabated, Lirri looked around at the other Ubrorans at the table, "is everyone thinking what I'm thinking?"

Sekac nodded slowly and Ovans returned Lirri's grin, "I think we are. Let's make some preliminary plans."

Arslan held his hand up, "Will someone please tell me what you all are talking about?"

"We are going to make a statement," said Lirri.

* * *

There were some downsides to being appreciated, Arslan Ivalice was learning. Again, somehow he had been roped into being on one of these raids. It wasn't because he was a good fighter, because he wasn't, it was because he had experience working with broadcasting. Simply put, they expected that whoever was in charge of EUN when they were attacked wouldn't take it kindly to being temporarily taken over by the resistance. Thus, they needed him to ensure that the risk that they were taking would at least allow them to release their message to the rest of Ubrora.

Their plan seeed solid, and in Arslan's mind there was little that could go wrong. This, he knew, meant that something was _definitely_ going to go wrong.

Their plan was to let the populace and the droids know that the resistance was fighting for the soul of Bontha. To do that, they were going to take over EUN's broadcast centre just before it's most popular program hit the air, the Manor Yoshara hour. Manor Yoshara was a broadcast anchor that seemed to delight in stretching the truth and taking on the most absurd of arguments. Arslan thought that she was a disgrace. Unfortunately, he was in the minority opinion, as Manor Yoshara was extremely popular.

Manor had two things that made her a perfect target. One was that she had a huge audience, and thus the resistance would get their message out to the maximum number of people. Two was that Manor Yoshara had been pro-invasion from the start and it seemed that it wasn't just because she loved taking contrarian viewpoints. No, a little sleuthing had determined that Manor Yoshara's bank accounts had gotten surprisingly larger in the days since the invasion had begun. And it didn't take a genius to figure out why that might be. Getting their message out was still the priority, but crushing Manor Yoshara's reputation was going to be a nice bonus.

He, Lirri, Sekac, Ovans and a pair of their best resistance fighters were the entirety of the team they were taking on this mission, and he thought that should be more than enough people to take to overwhelm the meager security of EUN. Though they had more fighters, everyone agreed that a small team was more suited for this smaller raid. Hopefully they'd be able to get in and out before the droids could react.

The six Ubrorans quickly hustled into the main lobby of the EUN building, their weapons concealed by their clothing. A couple of Ubrorans in EUN clothing gave them odd looks as they entered, but no one said anything. The group made their way at a leisurely, but determined pace towards the main control room of the news station. Just outside the control room, a single security guard looked up from his datapad, "Sorry all, tours of the building aren't being offered..."

Lirri simply waltzed up to the guard and dropped him with an open-handed palm strike. The elderly security guard dropped without a sound. Before a startled secretary could summon more reinforcements, for what little good it would have done them, the sextet marched into the main control room of EUN.

The workers inside mostly stared at them oddly, totally confused as to why six people had walked in on their broadcast room. Then the smarter ones, recognizing that both he and Lirri were prominent members of the resistance and that their network had been anti-resistance since the invasion quietly and surreptitiously got behind cover. Several glanced surreptitiously towards the emergency exit at the back of the room, wondering if they should make a break for it.

He, Ovans and Sekac fanned out towards the edges of the room, while Lirri stepped into the middle of the room and showed that she was unarmed. "We just want to speak with Manor Yoshara. I know she is in the middle of her show, but considering the…hurtful words she has had for the resistance, I think it's best she met the face of the resistance one on one." No one in the control room seemed to move. Lirri sighed dramatically, "Look, this will go easier if you tell me what room she's recording her broadcast in, and if you tell her that I'm coming. Otherwise my associates and I will barge in and have to create a scene."

Again, no one seemed to want to answer to Lirri. Arslan spared a look at his chrono, while he didn't think that the droids would be coming, the police still functioned in Bontha, and though they had the police outgunned, if they engaged them in a fight, they would have lost the moral high ground. And that was something that they wanted to maintain.

One of the older members of the crew stood, "She's in room four. I'll tell her that you are coming. Please be quick about it, I know that you have your disagreements and that is your business, but many of us put hard work into this broadcast and we do not want to see it go to waste."

Lirri bowed politely, "I will be in and out as quick as possible."

Arslan concealed a little smile, they were right on schedule, all they had to do now was have Lirri confront quote unquote respected journalist Manor Yoshara, show the audience the evidence that they had collected where millions of credits just 'happened' to appear in her bank account on the day of the invasion and let the audience figure it out. Simple, clean, effective.

He was beginning to congratulate himself on a quality plan when everything went to hell.

A squad of spindly battle droids marched the room. Stunned, he didn't move even as he saw several of them pointing blasters in his direction. The droids picked their targets and fired. Ovans launched himself at him and tackled him to the ground. The air wooshed out of Arlan's lungs, but it was a sweet pain, because it confirmed that he was still alive, "Thanks," he wheezed.

Ovans didn't reply, he just opened fire with his concealed weapon, dropping a pair of droids. He then had to dive back into cover beside him. "This has all gone to hell! We need a plan!"

"We need to get to the emergency exit!" he yelled, "It's at the back of the room."

"Mind telling us how we get there without being blasted by those droids?"

A good question. He looked around and yelped when another shot came in his direction. He ducked back into cover. The situation was deteriorating rapidly, the droids were circling around them and soon what meager cover they had would be compromised. Perhaps, he thought, they might consider surrendering. At least they'd be alive.

He peeked his head out again, and this time he saw an Ubroran behind the droids in rich dress. His name flashed to his mind, Murgo Boikana, Lirri's father. Risking another peek out of his cover, he saw Murgo shouting orders to the droids, "I want my daughter alive! Stop firing wildly you tin cans!"

"Roger, roger," replied the droids.

A plan began to form in Arslan's head, it was risky, but they were going to all be dead in a matter of seconds if they didn't do something drastic. "We surrender!" he shouted.

Ovans looked at him in disgust, but he mouthed 'I have a plan.'

Ovans hesitated for a moment, before throwing down his weapon, "We surrender," yelled Ovans.

All around them, the other resistance members were tossing their weapons on the ground and raising their hands in surrender.

"Cease fire," said mayor Boikana to the droids. Removing any doubt as to who was in charge, the beige battle droids stopped firing, though they kept their blasters pointed at the six Ubroran fighters. "Come out with your arms raised and you will not be hurt," the mayor continued.

The six Ubroran resistance fighters emerged from hiding. Sekac's arm was limp at his side and Lirri had a cut just above her right eye, but otherwise the resistance fighters were all in good shape. "The rest of you, out," said Murgo Boikana.

The terrified staff of EUN ran past them and the droids into the lobby of the EUN building, leaving only the six resistance fighters and the droids in the control room. It was eerily quiet now as the resistance fighter stood awkwardly in a line waiting for what was going to happen next.

Murgo walked up to inspect the rebels, no one offered a word, they just stared at their mayor, all of them hoping that somehow their eyes would emit lasers that would burn the mayor into char. Finally Murgo came to stand in front his daughter, "Lirri what are you wearing?" he asked, his clawed hand brushing against the tan and brown robe.

"The clothes of someone I could have been," she answered defiantly.

Murgo's eyebrows raised in amusement, "A Jedi?"

"Yes."

Murgo laughed, "Oh sweet daughter, you always were a dreamer with delusions of grandeur. But now those dreams are over, you'll come home with me and we'll forget this whole 'resistance' thing ever happened."

Lirri's features curled into a snarl, "I'll never join you. I fight for freedom for my planet. What are you fighting for?"

The mayor of Bontha sighed, "You are young and naïve Lirri. It is time you learned that." Murgo began to pace, "You see daughter, I've been talking to Admiral Varless, and he's told me some things about the Jedi that I think you'd find interesting. Did you know that the Jedi are well known for what is called the 'Jedi mind trick?' No? Well a Jedi can…lets say, persuade you to think a certain way about something. I think that is what they have done to you, daughter. They've fooled you into thinking that you are a Jedi."

"No, they haven't," she spat, "The only one that is being fooled is you! You're helping that crazy Admiral conquer our planet!"

"I'm helping Admiral Varless, yes," said Murgo. "But I'm helping him because he has a vision for Ubrora, one that I happen to agree with. The Republic is corrupt and failing. Why attach ourselves to it? We can be free and strong. With Admiral Varless' military might and our economic power, we can be a planet that many will envy."

"As soon as Admiral Varless gets what he wants from you, he'll kill you," said Sekac in his usual quiet tone.

Murgo turned to face Sekac, wagging a finger directly in his face, "I doubt that. See, he needs a public face that will rule Ubrora, and who better than a mayor of our capital city? Once the invasion is complete, he's promised me that he'll name me the new President of Ubrora."

Lirri curtsied sardonically, "I'll remember to blow up your inauguration, father."

Murgo slapped his daughter, hard. Ovans tensed beside him, but Arslan grabbed Ovans' hand with a silent warning. There were still droids pointing blasters at them, this was not the time to come rushing to Lirri's aid. Besides, it didn't look like she needed it.

Murgo stood tall over his daughter, who defiantly stared back at him, "I should have done that a long time ago. But I'm going to tell you what I'm going to do now. You'll come with me. Your compatriots here, I'll throw in jail. Next, I'll find your little Jedi friends, wherever they are hiding, and then I'll have them killed. Then I'll string up their bodies from the capital building, so that all of Bontha can see what the price of resistance is."

"You MONSTER!" Lirri launched herself at her father, cracking him in the head with a kick that seemed more instinctual then practiced. Murgo Boikana, self-appointed President of Ubrora, hit the ground with a thud and did not rise. Arslan stared at Murgo's body in disbelief. Had Lirri just knocked out her father with one kick?

Arslan stared at the droids, who were comically looking at each other, obviously seeking instructions. Arslan remembered that the last instruction that they had been given was to cease fire. So they were. And now that Murgo was down...

"Run!" he said. The six resistance members bolted for the back emergency exit. Lirri looked regretful that she was leaving her father behind, whether that was because she regretted her actions or that she wanted to continue beating on him, Arslan couldn't tell.

The droids should have turned their blasters on them and killed them all in a few short moments, except that they had been given an order by their commanding officer to cease fire. And the droids were too stupid to think for themselves. "What do we do?" asked one of them.

Stupid droids.

Unfortunately for Arslan, the droids turned out to be as stupid as he had hoped. "Blast them!" one commanded.

Needing no further encouragement, his fellow droids opened up with their blaster rifles. Laser fire pinged all around him and he heard screams from somewhere near him. He ran as fast as his legs would carry him, out through the back exit and into the Ubroran twilight. He didn't stop running until they reached Sekac's house, which was the closest resistance house to the EUN building.

Chest heaving, Arslan counted those who had made it back to Sekac's house. It was just him, Lirri, Ovans and Sekac. The two other resistance members, Calaj and Demeter, hadn't made it back with them. Whether they were dead, captured or wounded was unknown and Arslan didn't really feel like asking. Another bitter loss for the resistance. First the Jedi, now two more casualties.

Damn.

"Looks like our sweet mayor just became enemy number one," said Ovans. Ovans' shirt had been ripped and torn during their escape, but seemed to have come off unharmed.

"I voted for him too," said Sekac, grabbing some painkillers from a medkit, "That hurts more than my arm."

"Are you okay, Sekac?"

The hunter waved away his concern, "Yeah. I'm fine."

"We should go back and look for Calaj and Demeter," said Lirri as she headed for the door.

All three male Ubrorans stepped into her path. "Now isn't the time for that Lirri," said Ovans. "We can't afford to rush into anything right now. That's what we did just now. We thought it would be easy. But it wasn't. We need to settle down and plan. Otherwise this will happen again."

Sekac grunted, "But what do we do about Mayor Boikana?"

"What do you want to do Lirri?" he asked quietly.

Lirri paused for a moment, "We treat him like any other combatant. He's chosen his side and I've chosen mine. There is no room for family now."

Arslan realized that the fight for Bontha had gotten very personal.


	34. Chapter 34: Surrender

**LordDarthYoda** \- I mean you can put your own political bent on what kind of broadcast was being put on, but you're certainly in the ballpark. The problem with the Ubrorans is that without Nara and Sascha to gently guide them, all they have are these decent plans that are uh, very optimistic about things. They'll learn, but they'll fail at first. Loved the Monster's Inc reference too :).

 **SpeechBubbleMe-** I'm not a big Harry Potter fan, but that is a great (and very self aware) quote. It's like a central theme in stories that the heroes make a big plan...and then it goes wrong about halfway through.

A/N - I have nothing to say!

Anyways, all reviews, follows, and favourites are deeply appreciated as always.

Please enjoy the next chapter.

* * *

 **Chapter 34: Surrender**

" _To the commander of the invaders of Ubrora, this is Jedi Knight and General Aurine Brynar. I offer you a twenty-six hour ceasefire, in which we negotiate a cessation of hostilities on planet. Pick a time and meeting place and I will arrive unaccompanied. You have my word as a Jedi Knight that you will not be harmed."_

Comlink message from Aurine Bynar received by Pravin Ecalt and maintained for posterity, fifteen days into the Invasion of Ubrora

* * *

Pravin Ecalt listened to the comlink message again, just to make sure he'd heard it correctly. He couldn't believe his good fortune. He had spent the entirety of his time on this planet having his army be harried and whittled down by the ambushes and traps that had been cleverly set up by the enemy commander, but finally he and his army were almost through the Napier Valley. Now with access to the two remaining cities of Ubrora that had not fallen, the Ubroran army had no chance but to offer battle. And it had apparently chosen not to. This war was going to be over, and though it had been more expensive in terms of materiel then he had wanted it to be, he was going to bring Admiral Varless the result that he wanted. That was all that really mattered at the end of the day.

Pravin had decided that after this was over, that he'd hand his resignation to Vash and he'd return home. His father had always said that there would be a place for him on Noonar in Ecalt Industries, and now more than ever, he thought it might be time to give up the military life and settle into something a little more…normal. Security maybe. Anything had to be better than this. His military life was beginning to chafe.

He'd had enough of being at the beck and call of a madman, but he wasn't sure if he could get out of his employment to Vash. Though, after he had delivered Ubrora to the Duros on a silver platter, he doubted that Vash would have any cause to complain if he left his merry band of pirates. Thus, receiving the Jedi Knight's offer of a ceasefire was more music to his ears, it was a method of escape. He had taken no pleasure in this assignment, no pleasure in inflicting casualties on his opposition. And he especially hated himself for designing that trap that had killed those two Jedi apprentices.

Killing soldiers he could rationalize, for he was a soldier too. Those Jedi apprentices had essentially been children, and he had a tough time rationalizing their deaths. Especially because if they had been allowed to live, they could have brought so much good to the galaxy. Yet, they were fair targets in a war …he just wished that there had been another way. Perhaps, it had been the death of the Padawans that had spurred this Aurine Brynar to surrender. Maybe in that way it been a noble sacrafice for the Jedi to save so many Ubroran lives.

"There you go rationalizing your again," muttered Pravin.

Pravin figured that it might be put on his formal dress clothes for the meeting. He retired to his tent, grateful that it was the one place on this planet where he could get a little privacy. He opened the box where he had stored his dress uniform. It had gotten slightly wrinkled, despite his best efforts to keep his clothes pristine. He smiled a little to himself. He had an army of hugely advanced droids at his command, yet he couldn't keep his clothes from feeling the effects of the weather.

Such was life, such was _his_ life, Pravin corrected himself. He looked in the tiny mirror that he had brought with him from the _Reprisal_ , his middle aged, bearded expression stared back at him. He grimaced, age was catching up to him. He could only hope that he would be allowed to do some good in the galaxy before he shuffled off this mortal coil.

Today, he was going to do good, he hoped. He believed that with a peace treaty between Admiral Varless and the Ubroran government, that he could perhaps forge a relationship that would go beyond merely the conqueror and conquered, but that both sides would see what the other could bring to the table. The problem, as always was Vash. He wasn't sure the Duros could even find the word 'compromise' in the dictionary. Nonetheless, he would do is best, as he always had.

Fully dressed in his full uniform, he exited his tent. It was a nice day on Ubrora, relatively speaking – it only was threatening to rain instead of actually raining. He shook his head and gestured to the two spindly beige battle droids that had been standing guard to follow him. He was within walking distance of where he had agreed to meet the Jedi, which was in a small clearing just north, in a forest that he'd been keeping on his flank as his army had moved from the valley and into the plains. Pravin had moved his encampment forward for the day, one could say that was a bold move that could have been taken advantage of, but he knew the word of a Jedi Knight could always be trusted. This wasn't going to be some sort of trap where he was going to be captured, no the Jedi were too honorable for that. The droids that he was walking with were mostly for show, he didn't think anything short of fifty battle droids would protect him from the Jedi Knight, if she chose to fight. Still, appearances had to be maintained.

After walking, enjoying the brief sunshine that shone through the angry gray clouds, he entered a clearing, where he saw that Aurine Brynar was already waiting for him. The Jedi Knight was slight facing away from him, standing with her arms folded across her chest. She was short and powerfully built, looking like someone that was competing in one of those Teräs Käsi fighting matches. She did not look like someone you wanted to get into a fight with. Still, Pravin couldn't help but find her appealing, appreciating her non-traditional beauty. She was wearing a slightly tattered beige Jedi robe, her emerald eyes were keen and seemed to be evaluating him as he closed the distance between them.

He indicated that his two droid bodyguards should stay back, and he walked towards the Jedi Knight, extending his hand in greeting, "Aurine Brynar, I presume."

The Jedi Knight shook his hand firmly, "Yes, thank you for agreeing to meet with me, General Ecalt. May I enquire if you are related to the same Ecalt family that runs Ecalt Industries?"

He nodded, "My father is Lawson Ecalt, head of Ecalt Industries." He shook his head in confusion, "Why do you ask?"

"In happier times, my Master and I once helped your father evacuate one of his processing plants after a chemical spill."

"It seems that it is a small galaxy sometimes," he said with a half-smile. The Jedi Knight did not smile back. To cover his discomfort he made a sweeping gesture with his hand, "We may as well get right to business. I assume that you have full authority to negotiate for President Mollek?"

"I do."

Pravin held his hands up, "I cannot say I have the same authority, but I believe that I can make Admiral Varless take an offer, as long as it is fair." The Jedi Knight paced, and looked unhappy with that response. "I can't promise anything beyond that, Master Jedi. I've conducted this campaign honorably, I will conduct the peace negotiations the same way."

Aurine Brynar stared at him for a brief second, and he imagined her looking into the Force, trying to figure out of he was deceiving her. He wasn't of course, but in her position, he'd likely be equally wary of him. "Very well," she said, "It's become clear that the Ubroan army cannot win this war. We are outmatched, outgunned and your forces are too strong. If I engage your army with mine in a fight, the casualties on my side would be enormous, and as a Jedi Knight I cannot let that happen."

The blonde haired Jedi Knight looked tired for a brief moment, and then recovered her composure, "My proposal is this: The Ubroran army surrenders. I will round up all the weapons we have and put them in a warehouse for you or anyone you appoint to inspect. You can take them if you wish. The Ubroran army will disband, everyone else goes home and Admiral Varless controls the planet, but the war ends."

Not a bad first offer thought Pravin. "You won't give us President Mollek? Just the weapons?"

"The Ubroran army is already short of weapons, taking away what they have will make them toothless. They will be no threat. And no, you will not get President Mollek. You can appoint another leader for Ubrora if you wish, but Mollek is not to be harmed. I could not possibly consent to that as a Jedi Knight."

"So all the soldiers go free?"

"Yes. That is non-negotiable."

"Vash will hate that."

The Jedi Knight gestured angrily, almost making him take a step backwards, "I don't care what Vash thinks. If he does not accept this offer of surrender, I will continue to fight using everything in my power to make this occupation a living hell for every non-Ubroran on the planet. Even if I have to do it by myself."

"I can relay him that sentiment," he said contritely, more than a little put off by the idea of a Jedi swearing vengeance against him and his army. It was already bad enough going up against them as it was – the two Jedi had probably accounted for half of the droids that had been destroyed over the past two weeks. Or maybe it just felt that way.

"There is more," said Aurine. "Once the peace deal is settled, I want transport for myself, Master Tiplee and our two apprentices off this planet and to a Republic world."

"Your apprentices survived the explosion?" he blurted, interrupting the Jedi Knight. While his heart leapt with the possibility that he actually hadn't killed the two apprentices, he had been completely confident that the explosion had killed them. Hadn't the Armored Assault Tank hit the building with a shot from it's main turret? Hadn't the Jedi apprentices been inside? A more uncomfortable question came to mind - was it even possible to kill a Jedi?

"How did you know they were hurt in an explosion?" asked the Jedi Knight, her eyes narrowing and her hand reaching subtly towards her lightsaber.

Gulping, he took a couple of steps back and placed his hands up defensively, "I created the trap, Master Jedi," he said in a quavering voice. He half expected the Jedi Knight to ignite her lightsaber and take his head off in one fell swoop. He fell to his knees, "They are legitimate targets of war," he protested. He looked up at the Jedi Knight. Her eyes shone with anger, like a pair of heated emeralds and she took one half-step towards him.

Instead of ending his life, the Jedi pivoted smartly on her heel, turned her back to him and went deathly still. It took a moment for Pravin to realize that he wasn't going to have his life ended by the Jedi Knight, so he picked himself off the muddy ground and tried to find what remained of his dignity. "I took no pleasure in it, Master Jedi, and I'm relieved to hear they are alive. If they need any medical help, I'll personally guarantee their safety."

Aurine let out a long breath, "The offer is appreciated, but I believe that their health is in good hands now."

"I am glad to hear that," he said wholeheartedly.

The Jedi Knight turned back around to face him and snorted, "You offer help now, but you ordered a trap that almost killed them. Doesn't that seem a little strange, General Ecalt?"

"Such are the ironies of war, Master Jedi. A soldier will fire at another soldier when there is a battle, but he wishes no ill will towards his opponent, he is only doing his duty. However a soldier will not fire on a medic, even though he knows that the medic may be patching up someone that may eventually end his life. Is it ironic? Of course! But it is _war._ It's cruelty is only matched by its irony."

The Jedi nodded solemnly, "I appreciate your honesty. Can you tell me one thing, Pravin? Why are you fighting for Admiral Varless? You have the honor of a true, loyal soldier, but I don't think he does. Well, I actually know that he doesn't, because honorable people don't invade peaceful planets."

"You mean to ask why I don't go over to your side?" The Jedi Knight nodded. "Master Jedi, if I leave this army, they'll simply appoint someone worse, someone who isn't willing to fight by the rules of civilized warfare. I have conducted this campaign honorably and I will continue to conduct it honorably until which time my commanding officer no longer needs my services. I am a soldier, I can do no less."

"Some would say that the honorable thing to do would be to inflict as much damage as you can on your invading army and join the defenders," the Jedi said pointedly.

"I wish I could Master Jedi. I'm afraid then you must know my other secret Master Jedi." He took a deep breath, "I am a coward. Joining you would be an act of bravery that is simply beyond me. Plus, there is the small fact that I would have been joining the losing side."

The Jedi Knight looked down, "No one can question your honesty General Ecalt. But you are braver than I think you know."

"Thank you for the vote of confidence, Master Jedi, but I believe that I know myself better than you know me after a ten minute conversation." The blonde haired Jedi Knight smiled at him, suggesting to Pravin's mind, that she knew better than he did. Truly unnerved by the Jedi Knight, he coughed, "Turning back to the reason we are all here…"

"Of course. My offer is simple, you get the weapons, the army disbands, and you arrange transport for us back to any Republic world. Peace comes to Ubrora, and we avoid the inevitable bloodshed that would come if our two armies ever met. It seems fair to me. Can you sell it to Admiral Varless?"

He thought about it for a moment, Vash certainly wouldn't like letting the Jedi go back to Republic space, because he would think that they would just come back with a Jedi task force. He foresaw that being something of a dealbreaker. "You will of course, pledge that you will not take any action against Admiral Varless after you leave Ubrora. And you will also inform the Jedi Council of the same thing, that this was a legal transition of power."

Aurine guffawed, "Is the word of a Jedi Knight not enough for Admiral Varless? It's not like the Jedi have interest in dealing with planets outside of the borders of the Republic. We have enough trouble with Republic worlds as is."

"It would suffice for me, but it might not suffice for Admiral Varless," he said apologetically.

"Fine, yes, I'll make a pledge on holo, or I'll sign some flimsy with my blood. Whatever would please Vash Varless," the Jedi said dismissively.

"And you'll disarm the Ubroran army?"

"Immediately after the offer is accepted. The weapons will be cataloged, and placed in a warehouse where you can inspect them. Then it will be yours to do what you want with them."

"What about the resistance forces in the cities? Can you control them, tell them to stop blowing up my droids?"

There might have been a tiny smirk on the Jedi's face, it was hard for Pravin to tell, "I'll release a statement to tell them to stand down. However considering you just about killed my apprentices, who I had put in charge of commanding the resistances, I don't have much control over the resistance forces anymore. Tell Admiral Varless that myself and Master Tiplee are willing to speak to the resistance leaders in person and make them see why ending their resistance to you is for the best. Beyond that…I don't know what I can offer."

Pravin wracked his mind, trying to think of any objections. To his mind, they were getting a good deal. Yes, his army could make short work of the Ubroran army, but even if he won a massive battle, the remnants of the army would scatter and be long-term annoyances for the occupying army. If the Ubroran army surrendered its arms, it would cease being much of a threat. The resistance forces in the city were very annoying, but without an army to oppose his, he could detail a larger proportion of his force to subdue them.

Plus, he would avoid having to indirectly take the lives of thousands of beings. That was something he would be very pleased to take off his conscience.

"Jedi Brynar, I accept your terms. I'll communicate the terms to Admiral Varless, and as soon as I get his response I'll forward it to you." He proffered a hand, "To Ubrora's future," he said.

The Jedi took the offered hand and shook it firmly, "Thank you, General Ecalt. It has been…an experience going up against you in the field."

Pravin let himself a little magnanimous smile, "It will be a nice cap on my military career to say that I made a Jedi Knight surrender. Though I'll be sure not to spread the rumour too widely…people probably won't believe me."

The Jedi Knight smiled, but there was something about that smile that screamed 'superior' to his mind, which was an odd sort of thing from a surrendering General. Maybe it was just the typical Jedi arrogance. Or it was that she had thought she had pulled one over on him. That thought unsettled him. But how could she be taking advantage of him? She was surrendering! Clearly, he must have imagined it.

"Until we meet again, Jedi Brynar." The Jedi Knight snapped into a crisp salute, which he returned automatically. Negotiations done, he turned back towards the two droid escorts that had watched him patiently. Together he headed back to his camp where he was not exactly looking forward to the upcoming conversation with Vash Varless. But at least the war was over. That was something any man could be proud of achieving.

The next day all the preparations were ready for the Ubroran army to surrender and for the Invasion of Ubrora to be over. It had taken Pravin over an hour to convince Vash to accept the surrender, pointing out that they had nothing to lose to accept this offer. Vash was set in his ways though, and didn't like ideas that weren't his own. But here he was.

He took a detachment of droids, a couple of droideka's and an Amoured Assault Tank, which he rode in to the location where Jedi Brynar indicated where she had left the arms of the Ubroran Army. Vash wanted to take possession of them so that he could sell them on the black market for profit. Pravin didn't care. He was going to get off this world and out of this terrible assignment. That was all that mattered.

As they reached the non-descript warehouse that seemed to have been half buried in the ground, he sent a squad of droids to check it out. When they emerged a few minutes later, they flagged him down, speaking in their ludicrously pitched voices, "Sir…you're going to want to see this."

Frowning at what could possibly be the matter, he dismounted from his tank, "You checked the warehouse for traps?"

"Yes, sir!"

Rolling his eyes at his 'army' he made his way to the warehouse and opened the door. He looked inside. The warehouse was empty. Empty except for a sheet of flimsi that he cautiously wandered over to pick up. It was a letter, addressed to him, from General Aurine Brynar. His heart sinking, wondering what kind of trap he'd fallen for, he began to read.

 _I apologize for the deception, General Ecalt, and for using my status as a Jedi Knight to deceive you._

Pravin reacted physically, almost losing his breakfast, but he forced himself to read on.

 _However, I strongly feel that I must take every action within my power to keep Ubrora free from the oppression that you represent. Right now, Ubroran forces are in the process of liberating Gamudo. The battle that you had hoped would be the decisive one will not take place. We will hit and fade and harass your army until your droids are all destroyed. Do not look for us in Namya or Wingke, though you might find us in Gamudo. We think you'll have fun going back through the Napier Valley._

 _I can no longer afford to be Jedi Knight Aurine Brynar. I must be General Brynar. And General Brynar plays for keeps._

 _PS. If you ever want to switch sides, you will always be welcome here. You have my comm frequency. I think you are a good man, Pravin. If you ever want to prove that, let me know._

Signed, _General Aurine Brynar._

Pravit crumpled the flimsy in his hand, launched it into the air and shot it into pieces with his sidearm.

It turns out, you couldn't even trust Jedi these days…

Far away from where Pravin Ecalt was learning a lesson the hard way, Aurine Brynar was watching a broadcast that showed Tiplee leading her troops into the newly liberated city of Gamudo. Namya and Wingke would fall, she was sure of it, but the droid army would find itself beset by strong resistances that Aurine had infused with actually army regulars. She had always known that she could never have defended those two cities, but she was going to make them hard to truly conquer.

She didn't envy Pravin at all. It was going to be a long road back through the Napier Valley for Pravin and his army. She was aware that all she was doing was delaying the inevitable. What she had told Pravin was the truth, the droid army was far too strong for the Ubroran army to ever fight. But maybe they'd stumble on a path to victory. That's all she could hope for right now.

Maybe rescue would come. Maybe Pravin would find his conscience. Maybe the _Reprisal_ would crash into the sun.

Aurine Bynar would buy as much time as she could for Ubrora. She would buy it with her blood, her sweat and her tears. But it seemed to her that all she was doing was delaying the inevitable. And she knew that next time the enemy might not be so kind when she went to surrender.

But that was a bridge she would cross when she got there. If she got there.


	35. Chapter 35: New Realities

**LordDarthYoda** \- You got swerved! (And so did Pravin. Poor, poor Pravin). I think that chapter was written a bit confusingly, there wasn't a lot of set up for something as dramatic as Aurine surrendering the entire war. But hopefully putting in Pravin's perspective made it seem that it wasn't so abrupt. But I'm glad Aurine even fooled you :p. If you describe a character as a tactical genius...you should probably make her outwit people! (I enjoyed the 'live commentary' comment for sure :))

 **Mr. Insane-** I planned it to be one of those things when you read it the first time, it didn't really make sense, but when you get to the end of chapter it all made sense. And you are right to say it fits in Aurine's character - she's a bit fond of pulling these sort of surprises. And General Ecalt found out about that the hard way. **  
**

A/N - We are going to check in with our intrepid Padawans and see how they are recovering (spoiler alert, they're still hurt).

Anyways, all reviews, follows, and favourites are deeply appreciated as always.

Please enjoy the next chapter.

* * *

 **Chapter 35: New Realities**

" _The bad news is that I've had to report my failure to Vash Varless. Reporting that I've been outsmarted by my opposition was hardly what I wanted to do. Yet Vash cannot harm me, because I am the only capable commander in his employ. The good news is that finally he is sending me some flesh-and-blood troops to help me subdue Ubrora. They will be mercenaries and thus the scum of the galaxy, but I will have to make do with them."_

-From the Journal of Pravin Ecalt, sixteen days in to the Invasion of Ubrora

* * *

When Sascha Whitestar woke up, he had no idea where he was or what he was doing there. All he knew was that he was in pain. It honestly felt as if a Rancor had fallen on him…repeatedly. Everything hurt. Everything he wanted to do took incalculable effort, including simple things like opening his eyes. He had been hurt plenty of times in his young career already, but this might have been the worst he'd been hurt. He'd try to think about it when he didn't have a headache.

When he finally realized that he had apparently survived the explosion at the communications tower, he was more than a little surprised. He was sure that he he owed Nara his life for the impromptu Force barrier that they had erected just a second before they felt incoming danger. In the split second before the explosion, he had leant himself entirely to Nara, and they had used one of the slightly esoteric Force skills that Nara had mastered to protect themselves from the blast. Yet, while it had been enough to keep him alive, it certainly hadn't kept him from harm.

Sascha heard footsteps nearby, "Padawans are you awake?"

He felt himself frowning; the voice that he was hearing was not one that he recognized. Had they been captured? That would be…unfortunate. Whatever had happened, there was no point in denying the obvious, "Yes, I'm awake" he croaked, his throat dry and parched.

"Me too," said Nara's voice from somewhere near him.

Though he was disconcerted to hear how weakly she said the simple phrase, he was relieved to know that Nara was with him. More importantly, he was relieved to know that she was still alive.

"Who are you?" he asked.

"My name is Harstem Embac, and I am a doctor here on Ubrora. You are safe in my house. You were rescued from your attempt to raid the communications tower, which was destroyed. Both of you were severely hurt as I'm sure you can tell. Quite frankly, I'm surprised that both of you are alive and speaking to me right now."

Sascha blinked and tried to get his eyes to focus on Harstem. When he eventually did, he could see that the third person in the room was an older Ubroran, his dress casual, colourful, but understated. The doctor fiddled with a datapad as he continued to converse with the Padawans.

"I'm relieved that I got the sedative dosed correctly so that both of you woke up at the same time, it's been quite a chore determining how our drugs react to your alien physiology. "

"Don't you have bacta?" asked Nara, her voice still feeble.

"We have heard of bacta, alas we have never imported it to our world."

From his bed, he heard Nara moan and he was inclined to do so as well. Bacta was, quite frankly, a miracle fluid that promoted healing in a huge variety of species across the galaxy, and Sascha was pretty sure that he and Nara could use a dunk in a bacta tank for at least a couple of hours. Without it, they'd have to recover the old-fashioned way, and it would take a great deal longer.

"How long were we unconscious?" he asked.

"It's been about two days."

"Two days!" he exclaimed. He immediately regretted his exclamation as his body protested his mild exertion. Sascha focused on talking deep, relaxing breaths, but even that was difficult.

"As I said, you both almost died. To be honest, I'm surprised by how rapid your recovery has been, but your Master advised me that Jedi heal at an increased rate."

"We're tough to kill," agreed Nara frailly.

"You talked to our Masters?" Sascha asked.

"I did indeed. They advised me of how to treat you best. She has placed me personally in charge of your recovery. I believe her words were, "Your house, your rules."

"As long as we are in your house, we will heed your instructions, Harstem," he said.

"Every doctor does so love a compliant patient."

"Is there anything else Harstem? We have some things we'd like to discuss in private."

The doctor nodded, "I'll give you two some privacy then, but I ask that you keep your physical exertions to a minimum, both of you are still bandaged quite heavily, and I do so hate reapplying what had been perfectly good bandages. Have your conversation, and then get some rest. I'll be checking in on you every hour or so."

After the doctor withdrew, Nara quickly started unwrapped the bandages around her montrals. As she unwrapped them, he could see that there was a deep cut near the top of her left montral, but more than that, something seemed off about them, but he couldn't tell what, if anything, it was. He was still feeling pretty out of it and he wasn't sure if his senses were playing tricks on him. It might have been that the drugs that he had been given hadn't been calibrated quite so correctly. "Nara," he hissed, "What are you doing?"

Nara turned to him, her blue eyes almost fully glazed over with pain, "Sascha, I need you to do something for me."

He tried to sit up quickly, an action that he immediately regretted, as a bout of dizziness almost overwhelmed him, "Nara, what's wrong?"

"Sascha, my montrals are out of alignment, and it hurts, it hurts so much. I can't fix them myself. Please, don't make me bring that doctor back, he's probably never even seen a Togruta before. I only trust you to fix them for me."

"Nara, I'm like barely holding on to consciousness here, I don't want to hurt you worse. Just get Harstem to do it, he seems trustworthy enough."

Tears of pain emerged from Nara's bright blue eyes, "Sascha, please…"

He'd never seen Nara beg like this, let alone cry, it was so totally unlike her that he figured that she absolutely needed his help. "Okay, okay, I'll do it."

"Thank you," she whispered as she finished undoing the bandage on her montral and settled back into her makeshift bed.

He made his way over to her side, trying to shrug off how unsteady he was on his feet and how his numerous cuts, bruises and welts impaired his movement. Harstem certainly hadn't been kidding when he had said that he had been close to death. Fortunately, he didn't have to walk far. He reached Nara's bedside. Nara lay flat on her back, wearing what appeared to be an Ubroran tailor's version of Jedi robes. Naturally, they were far more colourful than Nara's old gray robe, this one was a nice navy blue with beige highlights, which actually looked pretty good on her. He briefly tried to get a read in the Force on how badly she had been hurt, but his ability to touch the Force was spotty right now, yet even a brief glimpse into the Force told him that she was still not in very good shape. Then again, neither was he.

Nara placed a hand lightly on his arm as he examined her, "Can I hold your hand while you do it? I need something to squeeze, something to take my mind off of what you are doing."

"Uh, sure, just try not to squeeze my hand too hard, I'm fragile."

The Togruta smiled weakly, and took a hold of his left hand, "Just do it quickly, Sascha."

Sascha took a second to picture Nara as she had been back at the beginning of the mission, the strong, lighthearted, girl that had become a close friend to him. Sure enough, when he compared the mental picture of Nara at the beginning of the mission and the Nara lying beside him right now, Nara's right montral was currently bent at a different angle, about fifteen degrees to the left.

"How…do I…uh…do this?" he asked Nara's prostrate body.

"Montrals harden in whatever position they are left in, so you'll have to move it from the position it set in, to the correct one. You have to use force. It will hurt me a bit, but it will be better in the long-run."

"You sure you want me to do this?"

"I trust you, Sascha."

Sascha really didn't want to do this as he was not a doctor and he certainly did not want to hurt his friend, but he took a deep breath and did it anyway. Putting his right hand firmly onto her right montral, he took a second to get a sense of just how much force he'd have to use to move the montral. Textually it reminded him of cartilage, it was soft, and supple, but also firm.

"Hey, I told you to fix me, not cop a feel," Nara joked lamely. She squeezed his left hand lightly to let him know that she was kidding and that she was ready for him to start the 'operation.'

Taking a deep breath he quickly grabbed the pointed montral and twisted it back to what he thought was the correct alignment. Nara grimaced, yowling in pain through her teeth as she squeezed his hand. Nara squeezed his left hand so hard that he thought that it might break. _Kriff_ , had he done something wrong? After a second, Nara exhaled a deep breath and the pressure on his hand eased. Sascha let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding.

"Thank you, Sascha, that's so much better…I could kiss you right now," Nara said dreamily as her body seemed to ease peacefully into her bed, "but I think that might involve sitting up, and I'm not sure I can manage that anymore," she laughed softly.

"Well, good, because I wouldn't let you kiss me anyway," he teased.

"I know. You are still holding on to my hand, though." Strangely, he didn't really feel like letting go of Nara's hand. It was reassuring to touch her hand, it affirmed that they were, in fact, not dead and that his good friend was still here with him. Deciding that he didn't want to let go, he pulled his bed over towards Nara's so that when he climbed back in his bed, he could keep a light hold of her hand.

"What was it like, having your montral out of alignment?" he asked his friend. He knew that the montrals of a Togruta provided them with a sort of passive echolocation, but admittedly, he knew little of how it actually worked.

"Well, for one it was extremely painful, which you might have noticed. It's painful because our montrals let us…sense things that are happening around us, it's similar to the way you can sense things with the Force. But when a montral is forced out of alignment, that sense gets out of whack too, so instead of 'seeing' like normal, everything is just slightly off. It's like watching a holovid where the sound isn't quite synced up, and the picture is fuzzy. Except you aren't watching a holovid, its how you are actually perceiving your reality."

"That sounds… pretty awful."

Nara nodded glumly, "It's the price we Togruta pay for having such strong senses. Most of the time it's worth it, but it isn't without weaknesses. At least, as you saw, it's a pretty easy problem to fix. It only really happens to younger Togruta like me, by the time I'm fully grown, it's almost impossible to dislocate a montral, but because mine are still growing they are more susceptible to dislocations and the like. I must have really have hit my head hard though," she said, rubbing her head lightly.

"I'm glad you are back to normal, my Togruta friend."

Nara let go of his hand to pull up the sleeves on her robe, which showed very little of her purple skin, instead it was covered in off-white bandages, "I'm very normal at the moment," she said dryly.

"You know what I meant, Nara."

The Togruta shook her head, "I don't think it will ever be normal again, Sascha. I don't think we are going to make it off this planet. I don't think we'll ever get to see the Jedi Temple again. I didn't know I could miss anything so much."

He looked over at his friend to his surprise, Nara seemed to be on the verge of tears again. He knew what the words he was supposed to her say were, he was supposed to say something like, 'of course we will see the Temple again.' But deep down he was having trouble in believing that he would see Coruscant or even his Master again. The reality was that they were fighting a losing war. And they had almost already died once, taking on a mission that they knew was a trap, that was how desperate things had gotten.

"I think," he said slowly as he formulated the thought, "that we have to take this one day at a time. We are Jedi, we must embrace our challenge." It wasn't exactly stirring stuff, but it seemed to get through to Nara.

"As long as we still breathe, there is hope," she said as if she was quoting something she had read a long time ago.

"And we are still breathing," he pointed out.

"Let's keep doing that, then."

A long silence stretched as the Padawans dropped deep into thought. "Do you think we can win?"

"Win what, Nara?"

"The war, obviously."

"Oh, that. I….don't know to be honest, but I'm not sure it matters. All we can do is control what we do. If our story ends here, I want to make sure that I did everything I could. We only get to write our own stories, we don't get to worry about the ones that other people write."

"I like that metaphor," said Nara as she rolled over on her side to look at him, wincing as she did it, "did you just think of that?"

He shook his head, "It was in some holobook I read once. I guess it's always stuck with me."

"Nerd," said Nara half-mockingly. He smiled at her and she smiled back. It was good to see Nara genuinely smiling, and it felt good to laugh and smile as well. It was one thing that Nara seemed to do more than any of his other friends, their banter always had a playful tone to it, and it was nice to know that they could still engage in some banter, even after their near death experience.

"I'm not sure I like my new wardrobe," she said, analyzing some of the stitching on the cuffs of her robe.

"I think it looks good on you."

"Considering your fashion taste, that isn't much of an endorsement." Nara shivered, "It gives me the creeps to think that someone changed my clothes when I was unconscious."

"They could hardly keep us in our blood soaked robes," he pointed out.

"Still creepy." She shivered again, reacting physically to the idea, and he had to admit he wasn't thrilled about that happening to him either.

He held out a hand towards Nara, and the Togruta reached out and grabbed it lightly. "Why does this feel so comforting?" Nara wondered aloud, "We're just holding hands…chastely holding hands, before you get any ideas Whitestar."

"It's probably just the drugs," he said jokingly.

"Sascha, I'm asking a serious question."

"It's hard to tell with you sometimes, Nara."

Nara growled, "Just answer the question."

He considered her question for a moment, "I don't really know Nara," he said honestly, "but isn't there something a little bit special about…you know…us?

She squinted, "That might be the worst pickup line I've ever heard."

"Now who isn't being serious?"

"Fine." Nara sighed, "You know that you are my closest friend right?" He nodded. "I always…kinda figured that I wasn't the type of person that made friends, that I got these Jedi powers but not the power to have friends. I kinda thought that was a fair trade. Then you came along, and from that first conversation we had…I just got the feeling that you understood me, that you saw right through the armor that I had carved for myself. You were the one person that saw the real me underneath. I guess that's always made you special to me."

"I'm always surprised by how strong our bond is," he admitted. "I have or maybe had a similar bond with Tyra, but that made sense as I was her best friend since I was really young. With you…it was almost immediate, from the day we met. I always wondered why that was, if maybe there was something special about us being together."

"Don't get attached now, little human," Nara said in her familiar, mocking tone.

He smiled easily, "It's not about attachment, or even attraction, Nara."

"I know, I just like teasing you about it."

"I've noticed," he said dryly.

Nara offered him a wan look of amusement, "Sometimes…I think the Force gives us what we need to survive our trials. And I think the person that I needed to survive this mission has been you, Sascha. I think if I was left on my own…I'd lose myself, I'd lose my way."

"We support each other," he said, "We are friends, it's a two-way street."

"It's nice, having a friend. I didn't know what I was missing out on."

"It's nice having you as a friend Nara."

A pulse of warmth seemed to flow between the two Jedi that briefly allowed them to forget how badly they were hurt. The two smiled at each other, it was a smile of affection, of friendship, it was a smile that promised that their friendship would survive anything that could be thrown at it.

Nara broke the gaze, "Anyway, I think it's time to sleep more, I'm still exhausted." As soon as Nara uttered those words, a wave of fatigue seemed to come over him. Sleep did seem like a very good idea.

"Goodnight Nara."

"Let go of my hand."

"You first," he said.

Nara growled, "When we get back to the Jedi Temple, I'm going to remember all of these smart aleck remarks, and I'm going to put you in a joint lock for each one you made."

"That's impossible."

"You don't think I can do it?"

"No, I don't think you can count high enough."

Nara snorted in amusement, removed her hand and rolled over so that she wasn't facing him any longer, "Goodnight Sascha."

"Goodnight, little Togruta."

"That's going on the list."

Sascha smiled and adjusted his pillow, quickly falling into a deep sleep.


	36. Chapter 36: Rescue

**Guest -** Sascha's kind of always been the wise-beyond-his-years guy (when he isn't being a petulant teenager). Nara does tend to bring out the best in him though.

 **Mr. Insane -** Yup. I wonder what kind of group would be interested in taking on a force led by Jedi. We'll see soon enough. But rest assured they'll be a formidable foe for the Jedi.

 **Speechbubbleme** \- Oh don't worry about me keep writing, I've still got chapters and chapters written in this story. The fact that views/favourites/follows in this story is down fairly significantly is kind of annoying, but I'm still enjoying writing this story and these characters. I like the previous chapter too, because it basically establishes the Nara/Sascha relationship for what it is, a close friendship. They will always have this sort of playful edge to it, but there's no romantic interest from either side, as we've seen.

A/N - I've got nothing.

Anyways, all reviews, follows, and favourites are deeply appreciated as always.

Please enjoy the next chapter.

* * *

 **Chapter 36: Rescue**

" _The least I can say about Vash Varless is that he's kept anyone from finding out about our Invasion of Ubrora, which seems impossible in this modern day of communications. The jamming package installed in the_ Reprisal _is top notch, I know, but what about the cargo haulers that move the produce from Ubrora? Can Vash keep them from communicating back to anyone who would care about this planet? And what about the Jedi? Isn't someone looking for them?_

 _And Vash wonders why I can't sleep at night._

-From the Journal of Pravin Ecalt, seventeen days in to the Invasion of Ubrora

* * *

Pamaf Creel stretched out his legs in the pilot's chair of the _Astral Helper_. He couldn't stretch his legs very far, for one the _Astral Helper_ was not a very big ship, and second, he was tall and lanky for a human and whoever had owned this ship first had apparently not believed in leg room. Still, the _Astral Helper_ was his ship and he had worked a long time for it to be his. No one was as dedicated to the Antarian Rangers as he was.

His parents had thought that his dream of joining the elite Antarian Rangers wouldn't make it past childhood, after all, who would have wanted to live a meager existence as a mere helper to the Jedi Order? He did. And his dream had never faded. Pamaf had been obsessed by the Jedi at an early age. His birthday parties were Jedi themed. The video games he played? Jedi simulators. His favourite books? Jedi histories. His idols? Jedi Masters.

While he had known even as a child that he could never be a Jedi as he didn't have even a shred of talent with the Force, that had not stopped him from trying every day to live up to the ideals of the Jedi Order. As soon as he had completed his schooling, he had sent a message to the Antarian Rangers headquarters asking…no, _begging_ to be allowed the chance to demonstrate his skills and his commitment.

His friends had said that it was a waste of time, that his message would never be read, but Pamaf knew in his heart that he was meant for bigger things than living on the dustball known as Jakku. The reply came in under a week, offering him a chance to interview with a recruiter for the Antarian Ranger via a very expensive holocomm transmission. The rest, as they say, was history.

He had steadily risen the ranks of the Antarian Rangers over the years, and now by his late thirties he was on the verge of obtaining the coveted rank of Ranger Captain. He had served the Jedi and his fellow Rangers on so many missions and so many planets that he'd almost lost count of them all. He couldn't imagine a better life though. He knew that he was making the galaxy a better place, and few could say that phrase with as much confidence as Pamaf Creel.

The Jedi themselves were always a pleasure to work with, and although some Jedi were friendlier than others, the Jedi always seemed to appreciate having another being with them that they could trust absolutely. As an Antarian Ranger, he functioned similarly to the way a Padawan would, he would be assigned tasks, from tracking down criminals to fighting alongside a Jedi Knight. While some Knights preferred a Padawan by their side, some preferred to have a couple of Antarian Rangers by their side who, almost by definition, were older and knew how to take care of themselves.

Pamaf shifted in his seat, bringing up the main display. The chrono on screen was counting down to when they emerged from hyperspace in the Ubrora system. There were still ten minutes left until their ship arrived, so he started mentally preparing himself for the drop out of hyperspace. He didn't know what to expect, when the _Astral Traveller_ arrived, but frankly he didn't expect anything too unusual.

He had been sent here by his superiors in the Antarian Rangers at the request of the Jedi Order. A pair of Knights and their apprentices hadn't been heard from in a few weeks, and they wanted to someone to check in on them. This would have alarmed someone less experienced than Pamaf, but he knew that sometimes communications grids just failed, especially in areas of space like this that were less developed and off the usual trade routes. They'd probably land on Ubrora and find the four Jedi confused why anyone had been looking for them. They'd all laugh and the Jedi send them on their way, and Pamaf would report back to his superiors that all Jedi were accounted for.

This mission would probably be a boring one for him, completely routine. The only potential wildcard was the person sitting next to him…

"Nervous, kid?" he asked the blonde haired man beside him. Niko Leesman had been assigned to him this mission as an apprentice as sorts, to get a feel for how the young man would fare in the 'real' world of the Antarian Rangers. Youthful and good looking, Niko looked like he had stepped straight from the set of a blockbuster holomovie and into the co-pilot's chair. He was in his early twenties, but looked younger, he could have easily passed for an eighteen year old. Niko was easy to underestimate, but he was whip-smart, with an aptitude for fixing machines and droids of all descriptions that seemed downright impossible. Having grown up in the lower levels of Coruscant, the kid could also take care of himself, being a crack shot and being far, far tougher than he looked. In Pamaf's opinion, Niko had all the tools to become a great Antarian Ranger.

Niko scratched his head, "Uh, yeah, boss, pretty nervous. It's my first time on a starship and only the third planet I've ever been to."

"With all the gadgets on _Astral Helper_ you should feel right at home."

"I do…actually. The only other place I've felt more at home is in the junkyards back on Coruscant."

"Well the _Astral Helper_ has never run better, thanks to all these in-flight upgrades you've installed."

"Thanks, boss."

"For the hundredth time, don't call me that. Call me Pamaf."

"Right, sorry boss…err… Pamaf."

Pamaf rolled his eyes good-naturedly. He remembered the nerves that he'd had on his first mission. He'd been a nervous wreck, thankfully the Jedi that he'd been on a mission with had been understanding, giving him detailed instructions on what he'd wanted him to do and ignoring his slight, uncharacteristic mistakes. Pamaf wondered how Jai Maruk was getting on these days.

"Excited to get to meet a Jedi?" he asked.

Niko shot him a nervous smile, "Of course. I've dreamed about it for years now. Somehow I don't think it will go exactly as I dreamed," he said self-deprecatingly. "Can you go over the ground rules again?"

"For dealing with the Jedi?"

"Yeah."

"Kid, you know the regulations backwards and forwards. I bet you could quote them for me."

"I probably could," laughed Niko. "But I want to know about what's not covered in the regulations. I want to know what the Jedi are like. What is it like to work with a Jedi?"

Pamaf leaned back and smiled, "Do you know how many Jedi there are, Niko? There isn't just one type of Jedi Knight, some are friendly, very affable beings, the kind that you could consider a friend. Some are very stern and will barely give you the time of day outside of giving you assignments. The one think that you must remember is that they are the Master and you are the servant."

"Even the Padawans? I mean, come on, I'm older than both the Padawans that are on Ubrora."

"You have a little more leeway with the Padawans," he admitted. "But don't underestimate them, just because of their youth. Some Padawans can be arrogant, but most will just be like other Jedi. They will seem older than they look."

Niko nodded amiably, and then fell into silence for a moment. "I have another question. I heard that Antarian Rangers sometimes have…relations with Jedi. Is…that something that happens?"

He repressed a smile, he remembered wondering the same thing when he was Niko's age. He had dreamt about finding a nice Jedi to maybe start a family with, dreamt that their love for each other would be so strong that she would leave the Jedi Order for him. It had been a teenaged fantasy, nothing more. The reality was that although he was friendly with some Jedi, including some female Jedi, there hadn't even once been the barest of suggestions of interest in him. Which was fine with him. He wasn't going to miss this opportunity to needle Niko though…

"So which of our future Jedi companions has drawn your eye, Niko?"

"Well, the Togruta is kind of cute…"

"Isn't she a bit _young_ for you?" he said pointedly.

Niko raised his hands in protest, "I know that! I was just commenting…"

Pamaf personally thought that Aurine Bynar was the most attractive of the Jedi on the planet. Something about the holo in her file had stuck with him on the trip to this system. The Togruta was cute, he supposed, but she looked like every other Togruta he had ever seen. And she was so very young. Returning his attention to Niko, he smiled a fatherly smile at the obviously now uncomfortable young man, "Relationships between Jedi and Rangers do happen, but they are very rare. Don't get it in your head that you'll go waltzing up to any Jedi and they'll fall in love with you. Though some of them may swoon, even Jedi have emotions. Just…use your brain, Niko. If a sixteen year old is making kissy faces at you, I'd like to think you'd have the good sense to let her down gently, Jedi or not. If it's someone your age and you both want to…there is nothing standing in your way."

The handsome young man considered that response, "So it's kind of a use your best judgement thing. I guess I was hoping for something more…detailed than that."

"It's hard to make detailed rules when dealing with matters of the heart."

The young man nodded respectfully, "Okay, thanks for the wisdom, Pamaf."

"Just know if you need a second opinion Niko, I've been there and done that. I don't judge either. Life's hard enough as it is, it gets worse when people judge you. We in the Antarian Rangers, we like to think of ourselves as a family. A weird, totally non-traditional family, but a family nonetheless."

"Thanks, Pamaf. This…this feels like the first place I've ever been welcomed in since…well…since my parents…you know."

"Let's not focus on that right now, we are just about to come out of hyperspace so make sure everything is ready."

"I'm on it."

The glittering blueness of hyperspace reverted to the black bleakness of realspace. While Pamaf had seen it happen hundreds of times and was frankly bored of it, Niko watched the reversion as if he was a kid given a hundred credit card and unleashed in a candy store. Pure, unadulterated bliss. "Welcome to the Ubrora system, Niko Leesman. Open a channel to our Ubroran hosts. Get clearance to land."

"Gotcha."

Pamaf gunned the sublight engines and chose the most direct vector to the planet, calculating the rotation of Ubrora as it twirled passively around its sun. "Hey Pamaf? I'm not getting a response from Ubrora landing control."

He frowned in confusion, "No response? Is it nighttime on that part of the world?"

"No, there should be hours of daylight still."

Pamaf Creel had a sudden sinking feeling. He was not a Jedi, but long years of working alongside them meant that he picked up some 'Jedi-esque' habits, one of which was that he tended to trust his feelings. He turned the sensors to their widest setting. After a moment of silence, the sensors squealed, indicating that there were multiple incoming contacts coming from behind them.

As an experienced Ranger, he didn't panic, he immediately opened a channel to the incoming vessels, which by the speed that they were encroaching on the _Astral_ Traveller, they had to be fairly quick ships. Possibly a Starfighter or something similar. "Inbound ships this is _Astral Traveller_. Please state your intentions."

"I…don't think they can respond," said Niko as he furiously worked his controls, "those are droid starfighters."

Droid Starfighters? Out here in the Ubrora system? That didn't make any sense, they simply didn't have the range to be out this far. "Then where is the mother ship?" asked Pamaf.

Then he saw it emerging from the shadow of a large gas giant, the unmistakable features of a Lucrehulk-class battleship. He immediately swung the _Astral Traveller_ in the opposite direction. It was fruitless, however, by the time he had pushed the engines to the red-line, the ship had already started shuddering with the unmistakable rattle that told him that a tractor beam was locked on to them. A brief glance down at his control panel only confirmed that. He tried to shake the beam, tried to let his engines go dead and then go back to 100% to try to confuse the tractor beam operator. Nothing worked. They were going to be paying the _Lucrehulk_ an up close and personal visit real soon.

"What…what do we do?" asked Niko, who now really did look like a scared teenager that was turning to his parents to bail him out.

"Can we get a transmission out?" he asked.

Niko's hands flew over his controls, almost faster than his eyes could process. "We are being jammed, but I'll see if I can defeat the jamming. Make the message short, and I might be able to get it to Coruscant through some back channels. Maybe. It's a long shot. But it's something."

Pamaf nodded approvingly at Niko. The kid could keep it cool under pressure, which was an ability that not everyone had.

"Open a channel," said Pamaf.

"Channel opened."

His message was direct and to the point, "This is Pamaf Creel of the Antarian Rangers. Ubrora system is being picketed by significant hostile forces. Fate of Jedi unknown. Send reinforcements. Creel out."

Niko shot him a worried look, "Nothing about saving us?"

Pamaf didn't reply, instead he headed towards the rear of the ship, opening the weapons locker. He selected his favourite blaster rifle, one that he had handled on over fifty different worlds. If a Jedi's lightsaber was a pure expression of the Jedi's personality, this blaster rifle filled a similar niche for him. It fit perfectly into his arms, had a scope that was perfectly set to his eyesight. Pamaf was this rifle and the rifle was he.

He moved back to the cockpit just in time to see that the _Astral Dreamer_ slide into the massive hangar of the Lucrehulk. The hangar itself was packed almost to the brim, Pamaf saw a slew of cargo ships in the hold, all of the large and basically immobile type, the kind that would have been used to transport foodstuffs from Ubrora to the rest of the galaxy. He was beginning to have a really bad feeling about this.

He tossed another rifle to Niko, who fumbled and then caught it. The young man's eyes were wide with surprise, "What…what are you doing?"

"Do you see the other ships in the hangar, Niko? Do those seem like the normal compliment of ships for a Lucrehulk? No, they've been sitting in this system for weeks, capturing any ships that entered the system. Set the self-destruct, there aren't many droids around, if we can cause some confusion, we might be able to find a safe place to hide out and see what is going on."

"Maybe they'll just capture us," Niko said hopefully.

"And once they know that we are Antarian Rangers, if they don't know that already? You think they'll just let us go?"

Niko swallowed heavily, but then found his courage, entering the self-destruct code and following him towards the exit of the ship. They may have to fight their way out, but Pamaf Creel was an Antarian Ranger, trained to fight in any terrain, including the hangar of a _Lucrehulk_.

They didn't get the chance. A high-pitched whine echoed through the ship, and Pamaf saw with horror that a turbolaser battery had turned in their direction, "Get…"

Pamaf Creel didn't get to finish that sentence. The turbolaser opened fire on the shield less _Astral Dreamer_ and hit it's main fuel tank. The small ship exploded in a fiery ball of light. Parts of the ship rattled around in the hangar, causing minor damage to some of the other ships and decapitating a luckless R2 unit. A few more shots were pumped into the wreckage of the _Astral Dreamer_ for good measure before a team of firefighting droids were dispatched to put out the flames.

In the control room of the _Reprisal_ , a slow smile crept over the features of Vash Varless.


	37. Chapter 37: On the Sidelines

**Child of Whimsy -** *Reviews chapter* *Realizes that he's changed the name at least twice* *Curses himself* On the plus side, at least its an insignificant detail now.

 **Mr. Insane -** That would be a hilarious gag, the well-meaning Antarian Rangers show up to save the day...and get run over by a speeder :p. As for your questions - you'll have to wait for the answers!

 **Speechbubbleme** \- I mean you'd be well within your rights to not know about the Antarian Rangers. They were mentioned in _Wraith Squadron_ which is a book that is...18 years old. I've always thought they were a cool concept. I think reviews ebb and flow - I'm amazed that I still have people who have been reading since book one...this is a really, really loooong fanfic at this point. I'm just bitter that I'm not a super famous author by this point :p. (Also, post more chapters :P)

 **LordDarthYoda -** The Antarian Rangers as old cannon, but I feel like its fun to blend some old cannon material in here and there. As for Jakku, I just needed a planet that was a bit of a backwater and Jakku seemed to fit. And maybe they got the message out - but how fast would the Republic move to rescue a planet that's not a member (yet). I suspect it won't be quick rescue.

A/N - I've got nothing.

Anyways, all reviews, follows, and favourites are deeply appreciated as always.

Please enjoy the next chapter.

* * *

 **Chapter 37: On The Sidelines  
**

" _The trek back around the Napier Valley is a slow march towards victory. The Jedi have played all of their tricks, they've played me for a fool, but there is only so much room on this planet. I've reinforced our garrisons in the cities we do control to make sure we don't lose what we have taken. The remained of the army will march to Gamudo to complete our conquest."_

-From the Journal of Pravin Ecalt, twenty days in to the Invasion of Ubrora

* * *

Nara Nalto prowled restlessly in the corner of her room in Lirri Boikana's house. She hated this. She hated not being able to take action, she hated leading briefings instead of leading battles. She was constantly battling with her frustration to the point that she had to take hours out of the day to meditate, lest her frustration consume her. By her Togruta heritage she was a predator, a hunter, much like her Master. She liked action, she liked being able to take action. That was the type of Jedi she wanted to be, the type that thrust themselves into danger so that others didn't have to.

Only now that option had been taken away from her. She was still hurt and recovering from the explosion that had destroyed the communications tower, and she was just getting to the point in her recovery where she could get up and walk around without random jolts of pain shocking through her at intermittent intervals. Truthfully, it felt like all her youthful energy had been sucked out of her and it might never come back. Yesterday, she and Sascha had tried to go through a simple lightsaber kata, just to find out how close they were to being able return to the fighting. It hadn't gone well. They were both ponderously slow, and although they managed to complete the kata, they had been so exhausted by the end that they had to take a nap afterward.

Nara hated being inactive, but she was still trying to be useful to the resistance by offering pointers and helping plan their missions. Only it was really hard to watch the Ubrorans fighting a losing battle for their city, for their planet. While the efforts of Arslan and others was keeping recruitment numbers up, the losses continued piling up after every engagement with the droids. The fortunate ones were just too hurt to continue fighting. The smarter ones got a taste of battle and then were never seen in resistance headquarters ever again. The unlucky ones…well…they wouldn't be seeing another sunrise on Ubrora.

In her mind she was doing the only sensible thing, the only rational thing, she was keeping the Ubroran resistance fighters at a distance, she didn't befriend any of them besides Lirri and Arslan. She remained cold, closed off. Thus, when the news inevitably filtered back that Zaro, Slateq, or Fioni hadn't made it back from their raid, she felt nothing, nothing but a little bit of disquiet that came when another life flickered from the Force.

Sascha, bless his compassionate heart, was doing the exact opposite. When he wasn't busy, he joked with the resistance fighters. When someone got hurt, he was the first to offer to heal them. And when someone died he was the first to offer to meet with the grieving families of the dead. It was perhaps what she should have been doing, but the problem was that it was killing him. Not physically of course, but mentally.

Deciding that she didn't want to be cooped up in her room all day, she exited her room, intending on finding her fellow Jedi. It wasn't that hard to find him. Every day, it seemed that her connection with Sascha grew stronger, and it seemed like she just _knew_ where he was at all points of the day. So she wasn't surprised when he found him in one of the quieter rooms in Lirri's house, one that had been cordoned off and kept quiet, for this room housed the recovery ward of the resistance.

She stood at the entrance of the room quietly and observed her friend as he hunched over a wounded Ubroran. Her fellow Padawan's eyes were closed tightly in concentration, and she could almost feel him straining as he healed the young Ubroran soldier. Nara knew the Ubroran's name, Gartan. He had limped home from fighting a skirmish a few days ago, but he had shaken off anyone who had tried to take a look at his injury. Only after his wound had become infected had he finally relented and allowed someone to look at it. Unfortunately, the resistance was suffering from a shortage of doctors – the droid army had occupied the main hospital in Bontha a few days ago, now some doctors were volunteering their time with the resistance, but they were needed for those with more serious injuries. So that left Sascha, too brave or too stubborn to admit that he was too tired, too weak to be doing all this healing.

Sascha was an okay healer, it was a skill that he had worked hard on improving over the past few months, and something he took pride in, but it wasn't something, in her opinion, that he should be doing right now. Healing was a skill that sapped the strength of the healer, the best healers in the Jedi Temple used healing crystals, including the famed healing crystals of fire that were amongst the Jedi Order's most treasured possessions. Healing crystals amplified the healing powers of the user and thus allowed one to conserve energy. Without a healing crystal, healing was a taxing experience, even for experienced and powerful healers. She had no idea how Sascha was managing at the moment, because he was neither.

Nara watched as Sascha completed the healing session, she could tell even at a distance that Gartan's infection had just about been healed. Good old-fashioned antibiotics would likely do the rest. Sascha opened his eyes, and took two wobbling steps before she realized how weak he actually was, and she rushed to his side to prevent him from falling down. She swung an arm under his armpit to support him, and he just about collapsed into her. She was lucky that he wasn't very heavy, otherwise both of them would have taken a rather unglamorous tumble to the floor.

After a couple of seconds, he recovered a bit, enough to feebly protest that he was okay. "No, you're not. Come on, I'm taking you to my room." Sascha started offering a feeble excuse, but he stopped himself and hung his head in surrender. An underrated thing she enjoyed about Sascha was that he was so used to being ordered around by females like his Master, or Luminara that sometimes he just automatically listened to her despite the fact he was actually her senior. She usually didn't take advantage of it but he needed some sense beaten in to him, and she was in the position to import some 'wisdom.'

After awkwardly limping to her room, carrying much of Sascha's weight, she was able to lay him down on the floor. Once on the ground, he laid peacefully, his eyes closed as he tried to collect himself, using a Jedi breathing technique to help restore some of his energy. She shook her head, if anything, her friend looked even weaker than he did after they had awoken from their injuries that they had sustained a few days ago.

"You're going to yell at me, so you might as well start with the lecture," he said, as his soft, intelligent, brown eyes seemed to search out hers. Whatever could be said for his fairly bland physical appearance, Nara was always reminded that Sascha possessed amazingly expressive eyes.

She shook that wayward thought out of her head, "I'm not here to lecture you."

"But you are going to anyway," he said, the faintest of grins appearing on his face.

She sat at the small table in 'her' room and faced Sascha, "Yes. Sascha, you are pushing yourself too hard. We need to conserve our energy so that we can get back to fighting shape as quickly as possible."

"I disagree," he said softly, sitting up gingerly, "it makes sense for you to conserve your strength, just as it make sense for me to do what I'm doing…though I think I may have pushed myself too hard today."

"You'll have to explain this one to me, Sascha. To me, we are the best fighters the Ubrorans have, so the faster we get out there, the more damage we can do and the more lives we can save. Healing and making friends is useful…but not as useful as you can be."

"Nara, that's great in theory, but in practice it wouldn't work. If we both were as quiet as possible, interacted as little as possible, and spent all day meditating, the Ubrorans would think that we are abandoning them. They would think that we are these aloof Jedi that don't care about them. We need to be out there, be seen. Be seen as a part of this little band of rebels."

"That's all well and good, Sascha, but you are going way above and beyond just letting the Ubrorans know that we exist and that we are still helping. Sascha, you just about fainted after that healing session, you can't keep pushing yourself like this, your body can't take it, not as weak as it is."

"I can take it." Nara didn't need to be a Jedi to know that he was lying. She merely raised an eyebrow at him and waited for the truth to come out. Defeated, and knowing it, Sascha looked away, "Okay, I can't take it, but I don't know what else to do! I feel so helpless. At least this way I'm helping people. I don't know how to detach myself like you, I wish I had your emotional strength, Nara."

She barked a laugh, "Wish you had _my_ strength? I wish I had _your_ strength, Sascha. How you haven't turned into a blubbering mess is beyond me."

Her friend shook his head slowly, "I'm probably going to hit that point very soon, but I don't know what to do about it. I don't know if I can stop. I can't just sit and do nothing, it's not me."

Nara pondered for a moment, "I think," she said slowly, "that I should help you. That we should share the burden. You're right that we can't just sit and recover and be aloof, but I'm also right – we need to conserve our strength, and one way to do that is to share the burden of healing."

"You'd do that for me?" he asked, clearly surprised.

"I would, but I'm not doing it for you, Sascha. I'm doing it for Ubrora, for these brave people who are fighting against impossible odds."

Her best friend bowed his head, "Thanks, Nara."

She rested a gentle hand on his shoulder, "How are you doing Sascha?"

He sighed deeply, "Well, I'm exhausted, still recovering from what feels like a thousand different injuries and it's really damn hard to shut myself off from all the suffering that is happening around here. I miss…my Master too. It feels like months since I've seen her." He rubbed his eyes wearily, "I don't think I've ever been this tired, physically and emotionally."

"Then lean on me." Like the ever compliant Padawan he was, he leaned into her, not heavily like he had when he had been at the point of collapse earlier, but gently, as someone who was looking for a little comfort. She pulled him in, so that his head rested chastely on her shoulder and laughed, "I didn't mean physically lean on me, you doofus. I meant like emotionally."

"Oh. You have to be more specific these days, I'm not at my best," he said lightheartedly, but made no move to pull away from her.

She didn't intend on having the embrace last long though, so she lightly pushed him away, and he took the hint and sat back up, smiling genially. "You know it's been forever since we meditated together Sascha. This seems to be as good a time as any."

"Wow, are you actually recommending that we meditate? This from the Togruta who said, and I quote, 'meditation is a useless waste of time.'"

Nara grabbed a pillow off her bed with her left hand and flung it at Sascha, who raised a hand to catch it, but not before it collided lightly with his face. "Just shut up and meditate with me," she said. She began preparations for a mediation session, knowing full well that Sascha would join her, if just because he seemed to love sitting on his butt and meditating for hours on end, something that she found bizarre, but accepted that she was unlike most Jedi in that regard.

Her mind calm, it only took a few moments for her to feel the relaxation of a meditation session coming on. As a predator, as a Togruta, sitting and relaxing like she was some sort of stoic or tree was about the last thing that she wanted to do, but intellectually she knew that relaxation was good for her, and perhaps more importantly she might be able to make Sascha relax a little.

She tried to let her mind drift, but it always seemed to settle on scenes of violence, either fights she had experienced on Ubrora, but others she had endured in her career. And they were always the most harrowing ones, the ones where she ended up getting hurt. She steered her mind away from that unpleasant topic, and extended her senses towards Sascha.

Her friend was trying to meditate, but was ostensibly failing, and opening a cautious eye, she could see the frustration playing out across his face. She perhaps should have been surprised that he was having the same problems that she was, but she wasn't. Instead of dwelling on it, she reached out in the Force and drew his presence to hers. Obligingly, he accepted her touch and let her lead the meditation. She smiled internally, Sascha had so much faith in her that he would just follow her unwaveringly, and it always heartened her when he did.

She was about to lead the meditation deeper when she sensed the approach of a familiar presence. A gentle knock on the door interrupted the two Jedi. Ruefully, actually regretting that her meditation session had been broken up, she rose to answer the door, "Yes, Arslan?" It only took one glance to see that Arslan was agitated, his tail was half puffed out in distress.

"What's wrong?" Sascha asked from his seated position on the floor.

"I don't…know how to describe it, you better see it for yourself."

The obviously shaken Ubroran took out a datapad and handed it to her. On it, a video had been queued up. She waited for Sascha to move beside her so that he could look with her and then hit the 'play' button. When the video started it showed what looked like a personal broadcast of a resistance fighter, but the city didn't look like Bontha, the architecture was just slightly different, more open, more languid. "Where is this video from," she asked Arslan.

"Namya. It was just captured by the droids a few days ago. The video is from a resistance fighter."

She watched as the nameless Ubroran and a small squad of resistance fighters were carefully stalking a droid patrol, waiting for the correct time to attack. Nara approved of the tactics, though there were only five droids in the patrol, it made sense to control the engagement as much as possible, because you could never tell if there was another patrol of droids coming.

Then, at a signal that she couldn't make out, the squad of Ubrorans went on the attack, easily surprising and destroying the five droids in a matter of seconds. She watched as the Ubrorans took the rifles from the downed droids and started hustling back from whence they came.

Suddenly, a few of the Ubrorans pointed at an approaching figure. Shrouded in the nighttime darkness and the streetlights, the only thing that Nara, and apparently the Ubrorans could make out was that he was tall, far taller than the typical Ubroran.

One of the resistance fighters yelled out, "Halt! Do not come closer or we will fire!" The figure, clearly unconcerned at that threat walked along the street towards the Ubrorans at a leisurely pace, clearly not at all worried at approaching a group of armed rebels.

The figure stepped under a streetlight and came into focus, and she heard Sascha take in a shocked breath beside her. The…man, she supposed, was suited in full Mandalorian armor, coloured in black, reds and grays, the distinctive 'T' shaped visor on the helmet. The Mandalorian was tall and imposing, even as Mandalorians went, easily over two meters in height.

The Mandalorian, in his impressive armor, opened fire with a pair of pistols, showing perfect accuracy as he shot, one…two…three Ubrorans in short succession. The resistance fighters, caught in a moment of indecision, chose to stand and fight, opening up with their mismatched rifles, mostly pilfered from fallen battle droids. That…was the wrong decision. The Ubroran's fire was wild and it missed the suddenly fast moving Mando, as he used his jetpack to avoid the incoming fire and move into close range, where he opened up with his gauntlet mounted flamethrower, catching a pair of Ubrorans in the stream and…she turned away, not able to watch the result of that grisly weapon.

The Ubrorans then broke and ran, and the Ubroran whose camera they were watching went running, and Nara felt herself willing this nameless Ubroran to move faster, to get away from the encroaching death. The pounding feet on the ground echoed the pounding in her chest. Kriff, she hated feeling so useless! If she was there, she could have stood up to this Mandalorian. Sascha, sensing her frustration, patted her arm softly.

The running Ubroran suddenly tripped and fell. The camera panned down and it showed that the frantic Ubroran had been ensnared by a bolt cable line around his legs. The Ubroran clutched at it, but couldn't pull the cord off of his legs. The Mandalorian walked casually towards the fallen Ubroran, who was trying to crawl to where his blaster rifle had fallen. But before he could, the Mandalorian stomped on his arm. Nara was pretty certain she heard bones breaking through the anguished cry of the Ubroran.

The Ubroran looked directly at the imposing Mandalorian, and squealed a cry of "I surrender! I surrender!" The Mandalorian warrior paid no heed to that message and simply plucked the camera from the Ubroran's chest. A pitiful wail was the last sound that emerged from the video.

Nara closed her eyes, feeling a bit nauseous. The droid army was one thing, something that she didn't know that she could deal with, and now add in at least one Mandalorian warrior, and this was getting a whole lot worse. There was also something about that particular colour pattern on the armor of that Mando that seemed to spark something in her memory, but she wasn't sure why that was.

"What…or who was that," asked Arslan, drawing her attention back to the present.

"That was a Mandalorian," Sascha said quietly, "They are fierce warriors. They are often mercenaries, fighting in brush wars…" like this one, Sascha was clearly going to say, but had the grace not to.

"Do they use the Force like you Jedi?"

"No…they aren't special in that way."

Arslan looked hopeful, "that means you Jedi can beat them, right?"

She shared a quick glance with Sascha who nodded for her to answer, "I don't know if we can," she said honestly, "Our Masters…probably. We aren't at their level though."

Arslan resumed looking worried, "So these Mandalorians, are they a species or…"

"Most are human," she said, "but they can be any species. Being Mandalorian is like a religion…or like an ethos. Anyone can join. And let's just say that Mandalorians and Jedi…don't get along."

"So, what now?" Arslan asked.

Sascha spoke up, "If you can, Arslan, contact the other resistance groups. Warn them about the possibility of running into one of these warriors. Tell them if they come into contact with one…"

"To run," she said bluntly.

"I'll do my best," Arslan said uncertainly.

Seemingly out of nowhere, Lirri Boikana burst into the room, gesturing frantically to grab everyone's attention, "I have news!"

Arslan turned to her, "If it's about that mystery warrior in Namya, I just told the Jedi," said Arslan.

Lirri looked confused, "What mystery warrior?" She shook her furred head, "Never mind that, my father wants to meet with the head of the resistance, tonight."


	38. Chapter 38: Family

**Mr. Insane -** If there is anything about this series that readers should know its that things _always_ get worse. I mean if the message got out, you'd think there would be some very interested Jedi that might want to lead a task force *cough* Luminara *cough* Of course, they'd have to have the message delivered to them first!

 **Speechbubbleme** \- Yeah Sascha and Nara's relationship is flirtatious without there really being any intent behind it. I think that they respect and admire the other too much to ever really fall for each other. Sorry to hear about family and health problems - those come first, fanfiction comes later! (I just enjoy it, selfishly!)

 **thejoker122 -** It does feel like too obvious to be a trap, doesn't it? I think you are right to say that the Mandos may be the trump card.

A/N - Just watching my beloved Toronto FC book their spot in the MLS Cup. So. Happy.

Anyways, all reviews, follows, and favourites are deeply appreciated as always.

Please enjoy the next chapter.

* * *

 **Chapter 38: Family**

" _These Mandalorians that Vash has brought in scare me more than any Ubroran or Jedi. At least the Jedi will fight with honor. Frankly, I'm sickened by the quote, unquote 'allies' that are on our side. These Mandalorians who kill without a second thought? I'm ashamed to be on their side. And don't get me started on spineless traitors like Murgo Boikana. The fact that he'd sell out his own people for a hollow title is just…I don't know. Disgrace doesn't even seem to cover it."_

-From the Journal of Pravin Ecalt, twenty days in to the Invasion of Ubrora

* * *

"He _what!_ " said Nara in a disbelieving tone.

"My father, the mayor of Bontha, wants to meet the head of the resistance in an hour and a half at his house…my old house," replied Lirri patiently.

Sascha Whitestar's mind was trying to catch up to this new revelation. He swore that five minutes ago, he had been trying to meditate with Nara and now his life was filled with Mandalorians and new revelations. Couldn't he get just a few minutes to relax?

"Did you tell him that there is no such thing as the head of the resistance? Do you think he meant the Jedi?" asked Arslan a bit nervously.

"I didn't get to ask him anything," Lirri responded indignantly, "My father just broadcast an interview with that witch, Manor Yoshara, where he said he wanted to meet with the leaders of the 'outlaws' at his house 2030, local time."

"It's a trap," said Nara and Arslan at the same time, causing everyone in the room to break out in a rueful chuckle. "No, but seriously, it's a trap," Nara said insistently.

"And what if it isn't?" asked Lirri, "I'll admit that it sounds like one, but isn't it a bit too...obvious? Anyways, don't Jedi look for diplomatic solutions? What if my father wants to join our side and is looking for a way to do so surreptitiously? What do we have to lose by going to this meeting?"

"Our lives," Nara said bluntly, moving towards Lirri and staring down at her intimidatingly, "The last time we tried something risky, I just about died, I'm not interested in doing that again. Things are desperate enough around here, we don't need to make things worse."

Lirri moved to stand nose to nose with Nara…or as close as she could physically could, given that Nara was taller than furry Ubroran, "I guess you Jedi have lost your nerve. It's a shame, because I'll be going to this meeting even if no one else is."

Nara snorted, not backing down from Lirri in the slightest, "And what day would you like your funeral scheduled for, tomorrow, or the day after?"

Lirri held Nara's gaze for a moment longer before backing down, physically, at least. She paced around the room and continued speaking forcefully, "I don't think my father will harm me…intentionally at the very least. Deep down he is an honorable man, even if he has chosen the wrong side. He's also guaranteed the safety of anyone who meets him tonight."

"We could make it win-win, then," said Arslan, scratching his chin with a clawed finger.

"How's that, Arslan?" he asked, curious as to how that could be possible.

"Well, we record ourselves accepting the invitation and if we get blown up or ambushed, it will make Murgo a liar, he'd be ruined. Plus if we go to the meeting and his demands are outrageous, we ca

* * *

n make it a PR win for us too."

"We just have to be crazy enough to step into an obvious trap…again," he said wearily.

Lirri looked down, defeated, and Sascha figured that might be the end of it.

"I'll go with Lirri," said Nara after a brief period of hesitation.

"You will?" blurted three individuals at once.

Nara shrugged, "A Jedi explores all options, a friend of mine is fond of saying," shooting a pointed glance in his direction.

"Okay, I'll have to get a camera for Nara, but I think it makes sense to have a Jedi along," said Arslan.

"Make it two cameras…Nara and I… we're kind of a package deal," he said, giving his friend a smile. Nara nodded slightly in appreciation.

"I guess it's settled then," said Arslan. "Send a message to your father that we accept his offer."

* * *

Sascha and Nara flanked Lirri as they walked down a sidestreet in Bontha. The city was quiet, even though it was only a few hours after sunset. Bontha had changed since the first time he had set foot in the city. Previously it had been immaculately maintained, a gleaming, beautiful city where the residents carefree and happy. Now it had been scarred by the various running battles that had occurred over the past few weeks. Many buildings now featured blaster burns, and when you saw an Ubroran in the city, they moved quickly and furtively through the city, rarely stopping to have a conversation or do anything that delayed them from returning to their home.

The fact that he had participated in making Bontha a worse place to live made him a little queasy. He was supposed to make the lives of people around him better, not worse. He knew why he was doing it, but it didn't make it any easier to see how the city had deteriorated.

He and Nara walked with their senses on high alert. Sascha could tell that his Togruta friend was happy to be doing something that took them outside the comforts of Lirri's house, even if it was just escorting Lirri to this negotiation. He was wary, because if they stumbled into a droid patrol, neither he nor Nara could summon anything close to their usual fighting prowess. And if Murgo Boikana was luring them into a trap, well, he didn't particularly like his chances of survival.

As the small party of Force sensitives made their way closer to Murgo Boikana's house, Lirri seemed to grow increasingly energetic. Clearly, she was looking forward to the showdown with her father. Sascha hadn't asked about Lirri's relationship with her father, but he suspected that it was a rocky one. If it hadn't been before the invasion, it certainly was now. Dealing with family was always tricky, Sascha knew. He had been with perfectly rational beings who had lost all sense of sanity when it was someone within their family that they were dealing with. With family, emotion, not logic, seemed to rule that day, and that was generally not a very good thing.

The group reached a large, well-appointed home in one of the nicer areas of Bontha, an area where there had obviously been less fighting. Sascha wondered idly if that was a coincidence. As they had agreed on beforehand, Nara rang the chime to the house and the two Jedi stood in front of Lirri, shielding her from whoever would answer the door.

After a short delay, Murgo Boikana answered the door in a rich blue and gold robe that accentuated his deep blue eyes very nicely. He sneered as he saw the Jedi on his doorstep, "Ah, the Jedi are here. Still not through using the Ubroran resistance fighters as your pawns?" Murgo waved his hand, "You can come in, but I believe talks will be short."

Sascha smiled patronizingly at the Mayor, "Actually, we are just here to protect the real leader of the resistance."

The two Jedi stepped apart to reveal Lirri Boikana, who strode forward confidently, "Hello father. I see you've recovered from the last time we met."

If at all possible, Murgo's features hardened even further. "Daughter," he said coldly. Murgo looked at both he and Nara, "And you are okay with letting my daughter order you around?"

Nara shrugged casually, "I'm used to taking orders from my elders."

Murgo appeared to bite back a cutting remark, but gestured towards the interior of the house, "I suppose we might as well get this over with. You are broadcasting this live aren't you?"

"I think it's good for the citizens of Bontha to see their mayor negotiate with the Bonthan resistance," replied Lirri politely.

Murgo grumbled something unintelligible, but led the Jedi and Lirri inside and into a nicely appointed dining room, which had a variety of snacks and glasses of water already laid on it. "Did you get mom to make the table for you?" asked Lirri.

Murgo turned and unleashed a feral smile, "Yes, she was happy to be a part of this family, something you seem to have forgotten to do, daughter."

Nettled by her father's remark, Lirri sat at the large, wooden table, and he and Nara dragged two chairs to sit on either side of her. Lirri took a cautious sip of the water, "Is Mom home at least? I'd like to see her."

"As neither your mother nor your brother's safety could be guaranteed during this meeting, they are not here. They are out of the city and safe."

Lirri shook her head vehemently, "Bontha's civilians are safe from any resistance fighters. What they have to be afraid of are the droids that you have rolled out the welcome mat for."

Murgo half-rose from his chair, "Preposterous! The droids are programmed to fire only on what they identify as enemies. The citizens of Bontha should not be afraid of their new protectors."

Before things could get even more heated between father and daughter, Sascha held his arms out, trying to placate the two Ubrorans, "Why don't we get to why you've invited us here today, Mayor Boikana."

The mayor of the capital city brushed some invisible dust off his collar, "Yes, let's get this finished quickly. I invited you here today because I want you to surrender."

Sascha was stunned by the bluntness of the mayor and Nara clearly was too, her eyes widened like saucers, before narrowing in a disbelieving squint. The only person on their side of the table that wasn't shocked was Lirri. She waited a moment before snorting in derision, "I can't believe you'd waste my time like this, father."

Murgo Boikana offered his daughter a sympathetic look, "It is not a waste of time, Lirri. We are at a tipping point in our history. If you and the resistance lay down your arms and stop destroying the droids, I promise that we will give amnesty to you and anyone who took up arms with you. We'll forget that any of it ever happened. I…know we disagree about the direction of Ubrora, but you are still my daughter, so I'm making this offer so that we can be a family again." The mayor's expression hardened again, "But if you do not accept my offer, I cannot offer you my protection any longer."

Sascha continued to be stunned at the direction this conversation was taking. And this time Lirri appeared to be equally stunned. Lirri turned to Nara questioningly, "Is he telling the truth, or is this some sort of deeper, hidden trap?"

"He's being honest," Nara said slowly as she shook her head, disbelieving.

Murgo took that as an opportunity to continue speechifying, "Lay your arms down, Lirri. I know it will be hard, but you cannot win. If you follow the path I've laid for you, we can be a family and reap the rewards that will surely come to Ubrora. You are a courageous young woman, Lirri. Join with me and we will put those talents to good use. Nothing but ruin can come if you stay this course."

Lirri hesitated, obviously torn by the offer from her father. He and Nara made no sound, offered no encouragement, and kept their expressions neutral. This was Lirri's decision, and they would allow her to make it freely. The young Ubroran leader noticed this as well, "Aren't you going to try to sway me?" she asked the two Jedi.

"This is your decision, your life, your city, your planet," he said calmly.

"Look into your heart," said Nara, "You will know what decision to make."

The Ubroran thought for a long time, and he could sense the turmoil inside Lirri gradually ease. She folded her hands in front of her, "I cannot walk away from what I have started," Lirri said in a strong, clear voice. We may be outmatched, but we aren't afraid to fight. We _know_ that we can rid Bontha of the droid infestation. Ubrora should be for Ubrorans."

Murgo Boikana collected himself, obviously disappointed by his daughter's choice. Nonetheless, he forged ahead, and Sascha could almost see him mentally distancing himself from his daughter, "It is sad to see how much influence the Jedi have on you, daughter. I see you continue to dress like them." Lirri snorted in derision, barely dignifying the remark with a response. Murgo continued, "You may think that you can defeat the droids, and that might be true, but you are no longer fighting just the droids."

"Excuse me?" blurted Lirri.

Murgo turned in his chair and looked deeper into the house, "We have another guest. You can come out now, Coren."

The sound of heavy, booted, feet echoed throughout the room, and Sascha sensed an approaching presence, one that reeked of, if not evil, then barely contained malevolence. He and Nara shared a look and they discreetly grabbed their lightsabers so that they were in hand. He didn't know who or what was coming to join this little party, but he had a couple of very strong hunches.

Hunches that were proven correct a moment later. Stepping through the arch leading from the darkened living room into the kitchen was a tall, armored figure. The figure came into the light of the room, and he got a better look at him. As Sascha had feared, the figure resolved itself as the Mandalorian warrior that they had seen wreaking havoc in Namya.

"Coren Vox!" blurted Nara, "I knew I recognized that colour pattern on your armour."

"I see my reputation precedes me," drawled the slightly muffled voice of the helmeted figure. He and Nara rose out of their chairs and moved protectively to stand close to Lirri. Their lightsabers were unlit, but in hand. Neither he nor Nara wanted to fight, especially not in the dining room of the mayor of the Bontha. But they had to protect Lirri, if things came to a fight.

Murgo Boikana nodded amiably to the Mandalorian, who settled in behind the mayor, folding his hands together. Sascha noted that the holster on Coren's right hip was empty, which indicated that his intentions were probably not hostile. But there was no telling what kind of weaponry that Coren Vox was hiding in his armor, and he had already seen the gauntlet mounted flamethrower.

Murgo gestured towards the tall figure in his impressive armor, "Coren here and has been loaned to us by Admiral Varless to deal with the nuisance that is your resistance fighters. So, I will offer you one last choice. Surrender now, for you are now outmatched. Admiral Varless has assured me that Coren and his compatriots are the equal to any one of you Jedi. Clearly, my daughter, you can see that your valiant attempt to wrest control of Bontha away from me is over."

"Last chance to lay down your weapons, little Jedi," said Coren in a tone of voice that suggested that he would enjoy goading the Jedi into attacking him.

"Mayor Boikana," interrupted Nara, "I don't think you know who you are dealing with." Nara pointed a finger at the Mandalorian, "That is Coren Vox, he's wanted on several worlds in the Republic for assault, murder and just about everything in between. The only reason he's on Ubrora is because his Mandalorian buddies busted him out of the maximum-security prison he was being held in."

"And how do you know all this, little Jedi?" asked Murgo.

Nara jutted her chin out defiantly, "I know this because my Master was the Jedi that captured him. I know that he is missing his left pinky finger, a little gift from my Master's lightsaber."

The Mandalorian grunted and removed the glove on his left hand. It looked like a normal, slightly tanned hand to him. "Lost my pinky to a Jedi lightsaber on Voss. Found a doc that was willing to give me a prosthetic, though." The Mandalorian ambled slowly towards Nara, "So which one of the Rishati twins is your Master, little Togruta? The red-skinned devil, or the green-skinned witch?"

Nara grinned, "Her name is Jedi Knight Tiplee. And she'll be flattered to know that you think of her as the devil."

Coren heaved a brief laugh, "She'll be less flattered when I drop your bloody, broken, body at her feet."

Nara took a quick step towards the encroaching Mandalorian, pulling away from his attempt to hold her back.

"Enough," said Mayor Boikana, "both of you."

"Nara. This isn't the time or place," said Lirri, putting a note of command in her voice. His Togruta friend snarled at Coren, but turned her back and walked to stand behind Lirri again.

Coren slowly retreated as well, but continued the verbal barbs, "Heh, another Jedi youngling that's all talk. Do you want to tell me how your lightsaber works now or later? I don't want any surprises when I take it from your corpse." Though Nara didn't react physically to the comment, Sascha could feel how strongly Nara just wanted to launch herself across the table and throttle Coren Vox into submission. Quietly, he sent her some calming emotions through the Force. Though he was almost entirely sure that she had enough control not to be goaded into attacking, he didn't want to take any chances. Nara glanced in his direction and offered him a brief nod indicating that she was in control.

Meanwhile, Mayor Boikana was trying to rein in his new partner. The smaller Ubroran was talking quietly to Coren while the larger man knelt awkwardly beside him. It would have been an amusing picture, Sascha decided, had the surrounding circumstances been different. "I apologize for my comments," said Coren, shrugging fractionally, "I just like to play with my prey before I put it out of its misery."

"What charming new friends you've made, father," said Lirri sarcastically.

Murgo eyed his new compatriot warily, "we all must make sacrifices to create, a new, stronger Ubrora."

"Funny, I don't see you making any sacrifices, father."

Murgo folded his hands together, "Then truly you are blind, my daughter." Murgo turned to Coren, "If at all possible, try to return my daughter to me unharmed. A wayward soul she may have become, but without the influence of the Jedi, I believe that she could still be made to see the light."

The tall Mandalorian nodded amiably, "All I want is the lightsabers of those two Jedi whelps. I've been meaning to add a lightsaber to my collection of keepsakes."

"And I'll be happy to finish what my Master started," retorted Nara.

"Any last words, any offer of reconciliation, Lirri?"

Lirri rose from her seat and stood proudly in front of her father. "Father, I wish you would see sense. I wish you could see what you've become. Employing war criminals? And now threatening the populace of Bontha? Father, you accuse me of being manipulated by the Jedi," she shook her head, "You've lost your way, and it is my obligation to stop you. We will dismantle the droids and capture the goons that you've hired. Then, when all this is over, you can go on trial for what you've done."

Murgo sneered, "Go then. You've made your choice. I only hope you realize the mistake you've made before it is too late."

Lirri started walking towards the door, but paused at the doorway and looked back towards her father with compassion in her eyes, "I'll always keep a door open for you, father." With those final words hanging in the air, Lirri walked out the door and out into the night, and away from her father. Sascha looked back at a seemingly stoic but clearly heartbroken parent, and his imposing ally, a Mandalorian who couldn't wait to get his hands on the two Jedi Padawans. He and Nara tossed Coren Vox a tiny salute before making their exit as well.


	39. Chapter 39: From the Battlefield

**Shadowburst Enigma -** Thank you for the very kind review. I look back at the first chapters that I publish and I think I've improved a ton since then. I'm glad you found it again after the first book ended - I do think that book 2 was good but not as good as the original, but book 3 is the best - just wait and see, there is plenty more twists and turns to come.

 **LordDarthYoda** \- Well those impetuous little Padawans put their plan into action without consulting an adult! Stupid, right? (Pretty much). Lirri really let logic go by the wayside when dealing with her father, which as you said, is unlike her. But, for once, your forcasting of doom and gloom for our heroic Padawans is off target - it wasn't an ambush at all (amazingly).

 **thejoker122 -** It's just about time in the story where things are going to be happening in every chapter, so you're right.

A/N - This is more of an 'update' chapter before everything starts kicking off. Funnily enough, since Christmas falls on a Sunday, I'll be publishing a chapter that day. And I looked at what chapter it's going to be...and it's not exactly a tale full of Christmas hope and good cheer thats for sure.

Anyways, all reviews, follows, and favourites are deeply appreciated as always.

Please enjoy the next chapter.

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 **Chapter 39: From the Battlefield**

" _We are almost back from where we started this campaign from. Gamudo is the final city that we do not control, and once it falls, we will control all four major cities. That for all intents and purposes would make us rulers of Ubrora."_

 _But that isn't what keeps me up at night. Maybe now seems like an odd time to grow a conscience, but I can't help it. I keep replaying that conversation with that Jedi Knight. Am I truly doing the wrong thing here? Is it even my place to think about such things? I swore the oath of a soldier, to serve my superiors to the best of my ability. But what happens when your superiors are monsters, and the people you are fighting against are only protecting their homes? Can I go against all the oaths that I've sworn? I'm not sure I can. A braver man than I probably could, but not me, not Pravin Ecalt._

-From the Journal of Pravin Ecalt, twenty-one days in to the Invasion of Ubrora

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The problem with being a General in wartime was that you didn't get much time for yourself, found Aurine Brynar. She had been getting a crash course on how being in charge of the defence of an entire planet was vastly different from the simulations she liked to run in the comfort of the Jedi Temple. The first thing that was sacrificed was sleep. Not a huge deal for a Jedi Knight, but still, having no downtime was taking a toll on her, little by little. The second was that because the Ubroran army had been such an afterthought, it didn't have the bureaucracy or the support to wage a long, gruelling campaign like this. Supplies weren't getting to the soldiers in the field, despite there being no real reason that they couldn't get there. Headache after headache all came to her, because outside of Colonel Auber Jeffs, there wasn't much of a 'staff' on hand to help.

At least Tiplee had returned a few days ago from another of her many forays against the droids. The Rishati was battered but still undaunted, and she had come to meet her here at Hesse Base, a base outside of Gamudo, so that they could plan the next stage of their defence of Ubrora. They also needed to check in with their Padawans, as they hadn't talked to them in quite a while, since after they had started moving around after their near-death experience.

Aurine paused to lean against a nearby wall, feeling her knees go weak for a second. Their Padawans had been ever so close to being vaporized in that explosion at the communications tower, and it pained her deeply that they had to take such a risk in the first place, and that she hadn't been around to help their recovery. Attachment goes both ways, she reminded herself. While most Jedi thought of attachment in terms of strong, romantic emotions, she was being torn by a different sort of emotion, a sort of maternal protective instinct for her apprentice.

"Aurine?"

She whirled quickly and was starting to drop into a defensive position when she figured out that the soft voice that had called her name actually belonged to her fellow Jedi Knight. "Kriff, Tiplee, you scared the hell out of me!"

Tiplee looked nonplussed, "Sorry Aurine, I didn't think I was sneaking up on you."

Aurine threw her arms up in frustration, gesticulating angrily at Tiplee,"You came from behind me, with your Force presence muted…how again was I supposed to know you were coming?"

"I…wasn't thinking very clearly," Tiplee admitted quietly, "I'm having trouble adapting back into more peaceful surroundings. I think I've been in the field for too long. I've become to accustomed to war."

Aurine grunted, and made a dismissive gesture with her hand, like a commuter may have made at another driver in rush hour, before she realized that she was reacting more out of anger towards being caught in a weak moment, than any legitimate grievance she had with her friend. "Sorry Tiplee, I didn't mean to snap at you."

"It's okay, I understand how much pressure we are all under."

 _A Jedi can be at home in any circumstance_ , she said to herself quietly. The saying was a common mantra that all Jedi learned when they were younger, and one that she had found resonance with on many occasions. Right now though, she didn't think she could fit into this, she didn't think she wanted to ever fit into this craziness.

"We should talk to the Padawans, while we have a moment," said Tiplee.

"Yes, let's find a room," she responded, raking her eyes around the hallways, trying to find a quiet room. The pair of Jedi walked for a moment before they could find a room free of occupants, and that had a door that would offer them privacy. Finally they found a room that suited them and Aurine shut and locked the door behind them before removing her comlink and dialing for the Padawans. The one remaining comlink owned by the Padawans answered with a burst of static, a solemn reminder that while the Padawans had recovered from their near-death experience, some of their electronics had not.

"Are you there, Padawans?" Aurine Brynar asked into her comlink.

"I'm here," said Nara, "Um, Sascha just walked away for a second, let me find him."

There was some static on the line as Nara's voice faded slightly, "Ok, he's coming back."

"Master? I'm here."

A small lump formed in Aurine's throat when she heard her Padawan's voice. It had been…Force, how had it been since she had seen him last? Yet, even without seeing him, she knew that he had changed. No longer did his voice carry his usual youthful enthusiasm, or his slight, sarcastic twang. He was being beaten down by the grind of having to watch friends and allies get hurt and killed on a daily basis. While neither she nor Sascha were strangers to death, having seen it on many different missions, it was just different watching a planet slowly get enveloped by the faceless droid army. She wondered every day if she should pull him back, if she should try to find a way to get he and Nara off this planet or at the very least, out of the thick of the fighting. But she knew that as 'General' Brynar, she had to use every asset available to her, and what better military asset was there then a pair of Padawans?

She cleared her throat with a cough before speaking, "So how did your meeting with Murgo Boikana go?"

"It was…interesting," replied Nara, her tone as well suggesting more caution then her usual breezy enthusiasm, clearly Sascha wasn't the only one being forced to grow up quickly. "Coren Vox was there with Mayor Boikana," she said, "It looks like he's going to be a sort of 'special enforcer' for the Mayor …and also I kind of revealed myself as being the apprentice of the Jedi who captured him."

Aurine smacked her palm into her forehead, while Tiplee's features hardened noticeably, "What have I told you about saying too much, Padawan Nalto?" the Rishati said in a stern tone.

"That my big mouth will someday get me in trouble," the Togruta said miserably.

"From everything Nara tells me, Coren Vox is a pretty nasty piece of work, do you have any advice for dealing with him, Master Tiplee?" asked Sascha, showing his usual grace in turning the conversation towards something productive.

"Yes, stay away from him," Tiplee said flatly. "It took me and my sister weeks to hunt him down and the ensuing fight with him and his followers was a dangerous one. Tiplar still has a scar on her abdomen from the near-fatal wound that Coren Vox gave her. He is not someone for a pair of Padawans to take on, especially a pair of Padawans that should be recovering, not insulting seasoned Mandalorian warriors."

Aurine felt herself nodding along with Tiplee as she berated their apprentices for their foolish, youthful hubris. With a sizzle of static from the comlink making his voice fainter than usual, Sascha responded, "With respect, Master Tiplee, if we aren't out there against Coren Vox, the Ubrorans stand no chance against him and his other followers. So it's either we go out with the resistance fighters, or we pack it all up and come back to you."

"And given that we've been pretty public in our appearances with the resistance in Bontha, if we suddenly stop showing up, people will assume that we ran...it will have a poor effect on morale," Nara added.

The two Jedi Knights shared a look and a grimace. The Ubrorans were not embracing the various resistances that had popped up across the planet with the gusto she had anticipated. Sure, there were reasonable sized groups in the cities, but nothing like the wave of enthusiasm she expected when an entire planet was being invaded. Ubrorans just didn't do combat. Or perhaps, they knew a losing fight when they saw one.

The one exception, so far, had been the resistance in Bontha, which had the benefit of the captivating presence of Lirri Boikana as the charismatic leader of the scattered fighters. But remove Sascha and Nara from the equation, and it might fall apart, at a time where she badly needed any distraction to the incoming army that was available to her.

"You have to stay in Bontha," she said, her heart heavy with regret.

Tiplee's feathery hair seemed to deflate upon hearing that phrase, but, she chimed in, "Make sure you have a plan in dealing with this new wrinkle, Padawans."

"We already have one," Sascha declared, "Nara and l will stay together, and always take a large group of resistance fighters with us. Our default plan will be to cover the escape of our Ubroran allies, and then run. I think that makes sense."

"Only if you agree though," added the Togruta somewhat unnecessarily.

"It's the start of a good plan, but not a fully formed plan," she opined.

"The best plans are flexible, you've taught me that, Master Brynar."

Aurine had to admit that Sascha had taken her tactical lessons to heart. "Okay Padawan, I trust you to make the best use of your resources. But remember that the both of you are the best resources we have in stopping this droid army. That means no heroics and lots of rest."

"We will, Master Brynar. I'll make sure Sascha gets his rest."

"And I'll try to prevent Nara from any unnecessary heroics."

"Hey, all my heroics are necessary," said Nara, with a little bit of her trademark frivolity.

"Padawans," said Tiplee sternly, "Please remain focused on the task at hand. Do you have any questions or requests of either myself or Master Brynar? We may be out of communication for a few days."

"I can't think of anything. We'll report if anything of significance happens here in Bontha," said Sascha.

"Sounds good, may the Force be with you, Padawans," she said.

"Be careful," added Tiplee somewhat unnecessarily.

"May the Force be with you, Masters," said Sascha and Nara, in perfect harmony. With an ear-splitting pop, the transmission from Bontha cut out.

Struggling to keep her emotions in check, she feigned confidence and turned to Tiplee, "What do you think of these new revelations?"

The Rishati frowned, "Unpleasant. Putting them with the resistance was one thing, putting them up against Coren Vox is quite another. Coren Vox was nearly the equal of myself and Tiplar a few years ago, I doubt he's lost any of the ferocity that made him such a difficult opponent. I anticipate that he'll want to avenge his incarceration by attacking my apprentice. Hardly a desirable situation."

"I'm not sure we have another choice," she said quietly.

"Our choices seem rather limited," agreed Tiplee. "I have faith in our apprentices, they have performed quite well so far, despite that one setback. Sascha and Nara are a capable pair of young Jedi. The fact that they can laugh and be lighthearted still gives me hope."

"Maybe I should broach the obvious then. I can feel how close they are becoming, even from so far away."

Tiplee offered a tiny smile from the corner of her mouth, "I've sensed that too. But Aurine, of all the things to worry about, I wouldn't worry if they found some solace in each other."

"Distractions lead to death," she said bluntly.

"Death may be coming for us all," Tiplee pointed out. "I don't begrudge them the little happiness they may or may not have found with each other."

"That's _your_ prerogative then," she replied frostily.

Tiplee shook her head, but decided not to continue the argument. Aurine checked her chrono, "We have a meeting with the War Council in a moment. I hope you have some good ideas, because I am just about out of them."

"I will give you what few ideas I have, Aurine."

It was a short walk to the impromptu command room here at Hesse base, and the two Jedi were the last to arrive for the meeting. Aurine knew that she was hardly presentable enough to meet the head of an entire planet, her clothes had been ripped, torn and repaired so many times they looked like a bad patchwork. And her hair? Forget about it. Never the most fashion-conscious person at the best of times, she generally kept herself presentable because she was the public face of the Jedi Order wherever she went, but right now her sandy blonde hair had become more like 'dirty' blonde hair, and not even her practical ponytail could salvage it's matted, sweaty look.

As soon as she entered the war room though, she could tell that no one cared, they were all too absorbed with the situation at hand. The status meetings of their impromptu war council had been getting more and more depressed. Here at Hesse base near Gamudo, was the leadership of Ubrora, her, Tiplee, President Mollek, and Colonel Auber Jeffs, the ex-Balmorran Colonel. Four beings with the weight of Ubrora on their shoulders.

"Let's get right down to it," she said without preamble. "Colonel Jeffs, detail the tactical situation for us."

The harried looking Colonel leafed through a few sheets of flimsy before replying, "The situation remains essentially the same as the last time we met, the droid army continues to close in on Namya, as we once again try to pester them with raiding squads. Admittedly, we are being less effective, raiding efficiency is down 50 percent and our casualty rate is up 20 percent from a week ago." "

The middle-aged human shook his head, "We estimate that the encroaching army has maybe 50,000 droids left, or around half its original strength. The remainder has been incapacitated, or put to use in subduing our cities. Still, the encroaching army has most of its battle tanks left and is more than a match for the Ubroran Army. Barring some sort of miracle or tactical masterstroke, that is."

"How many days do we have left before the army reaches Gamudo?" asked President Mollek.

"Two, maybe three, days," responded the beleaguered Colonel.

"And I assume you don't recommend fighting for Gamudo?" asked the Ubroran President, turning to face her.

"No. I've run some simulations of what the battle would look like, and our chances for success range in the one to two percent range. Too many tanks, too many droidekas, too many battle droids. We just don't have enough to fight them."

The room took a second to process her blunt statement. Previously, she had pointed out where there advantages laid, and where they were making progress, but now their advantages and small victories were hardly worth mentioning. Aurine felt at this point that it was her job to say what the situation really was, without any sugar coating, depressing as it was.

"What would you recommend that we do, Master Jedi?" asks the Ubroran President, a lonely note of hope in his voice.

Aurine folded her hands together on the table, "My council as a General would be to concede Gamudo, and continue hit and fade attacks for as long as possible, even though we will at some point cease to be an official army, and more of a 'Liberation Force.' It is possible that Admiral Varless will fail to bring in reinforcements to Ubrora, or that we might get exceptionally lucky and win a victory." She took a deep breath, "As a Jedi, I would urge you to consider surrendering. Even if it meant you had to turn myself or Tiplee over to Admiral Varless."

Tiplee was the only one who didn't look completely surprised at her advice. The Ubroran President found his voice first, "Surrender? That is your advice?"

She spread her hands wide, "I am only saying that as a Jedi, I am sworn to protect life, and the best way to protect the lives of Ubrorans may be to surrender."

"Who knows what kind of deal you could cut with Admiral Varless, especially if you were to offer up myself and Aurine to him," said Tiplee, speaking for the first time. Aurine was happy that Tiplee was thinking on the same wavelength as her, because they had not talked about this option earlier.

President Mollek stood, and began to pace, "I cannot surrender to a madman. I _will_ not surrender. Ubrora has been free since the beginning of our history, and I do not want to be the President that changed that. Hope is not lost. The transports that should have arrived to pick up our crops may report something. People will be looking for you four Jedi. Help may yet arrive." The Ubroran sighed heavily, "Perhaps this is not the wisest choice, but I feel it is the only decision I can make, until there are no more options available to me."

Aurine nodded, having not expected a different answer, "If that is what you command, I'll see what I can do in delaying the advance of the droid army. Perhaps Tiplee and myself will lead a raid tonight."

"As ever, I leave the planning to you," said the Ubroran. Glancing down at his datapad, he started heading for the door, "Now if you will excuse me, I need to calm down the mayor of Gamudo, and then prepare my evening address to the planet."

Aurine forced a smile, "We'll leave you to it, President Mollek." The Ubroran nodded absentmindedly and exited the room.

She cleared her throat, "I'm willing to listen to any ideas, no matter how farfetched they may seem."

"Sorry Master Jedi, I was always more of an organizer than a tactical thinker," said the uniformed human.

"I don't see how to change the situation either," said Tiplee, her blue eyes staring downward at the table.

Aurine racked her tired brain for one last breakthrough, one last delaying idea, one last piece of brilliance. She hoped beyond hope that the Force might show her a path to victory, but the Force had been silent ever since her arrival to Ubrora. What was she missing? She went back to the beginning of what happened on Ubrora…she got the feeling that she was forgetting about something.

An odd idea struck her, "Maybe there is one more card to play," she said to no one in particular, searching her belt for her comlink and searching for the contact information for Arslan Ivalice. Her 'plan' at this point was little more than last ditch hope for something, anything that could turn the tables. After all, at this point, she could only dream of this conflict being over.


	40. Chapter 40: With Honor

**Mr. Insane -** The card that Aurine is talking about is going to come into play a little while down the line, but it's a good one. I've left some (probably too subtle) hints as to what it is, maybe someone can figure it out! I do like your speculations though - it does seem like things will get worse before they get better

 **LordDarthYoda** \- In my notes I often refer to Aurine as 'Tiger Mom Aurine,' so you aren't too far off. She certainly cares about Sascha. Sometimes too much, like you pointed out, this isn't the time to worry about Sascha and Nara, though Tiplee is there to shrug and be like 'hello, fighting a war, who cares if our teenagers are hooking up.' The Uborrans are very outgunned, but the Jedi are about to get a break in their favour...

 ** **VibrantViola** ** \- Thanks for the compliment! I enjoy writing these stories as long as there are people around to read them! If you think book three is good now, I mean...it's got a couple of incredible chapters coming up in the next few months, chapters that I'm really, really proud of. Sascha and Nara's relationship is my favourite to write and it's going to evolve in ways I think people will not expect. And I think you are right to point out the conflict between 'General Brynar' and 'Aurine Brynar' its something that I don't think gets explored enough, how hard it would be for a Jedi, who is committed to preserving life, being a General in wartime.

A/N - I don't really say this often enough, but I wanted to show my appreciation to those who are reading this. I started out unsure if anyone at all would want to read about OCs in the star wars universe. I started out as a terrible writer. But now I'm here (and I'm still a terrible writer ;)) and amazingly my numbers remain fairly consisted throughout three books and a ton of chapters. It's really amazing. So thank you all.

Please enjoy the next chapter.

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 **Chapter 40: With Honor**

" _Am I a man or a coward?"_

-From the Journal of Pravin Ecalt, twenty four days in to the Invasion of Ubrora

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Pravit Ecalt rode in his battle tank down the main thoroughfare of Gamudo. Staring outward from the topside cupola, he took in the sights of the newly conquered city. As he might have expected only a aew Ubrorans had come to see his triumphant march to the city square, and the ones that had come out to watch had scowled at him with such hate that he had scurried for the safety of the inner sanctum his armored tank after a few piercing glares. While on one level he understood why people weren't exactly celebrating him as a heroic figure, didn't anyone appreciate how he had conducted the campaign? It had been as close to a bloodless invasion as had ever occurred in the history of galactic civilization. And that was because he, Pravin Ecalt had fought it honorably, with a view to building a lasting relationship with the Ubroran government.

Despite the fact that he was completing his conquest of the last major city on Ubrora, he was uneasy that the Ubroran army remained at large. It felt like had completed half a campaign, but he had no idea how to force things towards the endpoint, or to get the Ubroran army to engage with his for a final showdown. The campaign, to be honest, had been something of a bore. Early on he had made a mistake by keeping his forces spread too thin, which had allowed raiding parties, led by the Jedi, to have some success. Now, with his forces clumped together, the raiding, while constant, had been going poorly for the Ubrorans. There was more fighting in the cities than there was with his army.

The question that continued to gnaw at him was whether or not he should be doing any of this. His daily briefings with Vash Varless had turned into daily verbal beat downs, with the Duros Admiral not understanding why Pravin hadn't gotten the planet set up for his triumphant arrival. Not helping him at all was that the Mandalorian mercenary Coren Vox had quickly established himself as Vash's new favourite person. Boasting about his successes in quelling the annoying resistance forces in Namya, Coren appealed to the brutal side in Vash and Pravin was finding his influence diminishing.

He was starting to have thoughts about abandoning his post, but his past failure on of Talit IV, where he had fled his post like a cur still haunted him. He had worked very hard to carve out a solid reputation for himself as a reliable officer, and he hated the idea of throwing it all away for a planet he hadn't even heard of a few months previous.

Pravin considered that it might be the 'right' thing to do to call Aurine Brynar, and defect to the other side. The question he asked himself was that if it would make a difference if he swapped sides. If he could instantly transport himself into the other camp, did he have a way to turn around the invasion? He didn't think so. Plus, he reasoned, things might go worse for the Ubrorans if control of the army fell to Coren Vox, who likely wouldn't handle it with the restraint that he had.

But it hadn't mattered to those Ubrorans he'd passed by today that he was perhaps the lesser of two evils.

Surprised by that thought, he sat up, and cracked his head on the roof of the tank. He yelped in pain and rubbed his head where he had made contact with the durasteel frame.

"Sir?" squawked the droid driving the tank.

"It's nothing," he said quickly to cover his embarrassment, "Continue on to the main square."

"Roger, Roger."

Rubbing the top of his head, he immediately felt the lump that was forming there and he cursed silently. Yet, that was the first time he had thought of himself as someone who was actively aiding evil. That thought was one that would simply not go away.

With a sinking feeling that he would come to regret being a part of this campaign at all, he and his battle tank rolled into the undefended main square, signalling that the city had fallen. But Pravin Ecalt no longer felt good about accomplishing that.

A few hours later, with the transfer of power in Gamudo being handed over to a pair of Coren Vox's Mandalorian warriors that frankly gave him the creeps, Pravin was setting up the necessary communications equipment that would allow him to conference with Admiral Varless. He was alone in the room he had commandeered in what had previously been the main administrative building in Gamudo. City Hall, if you will. He had droids patrolling the nearby area in large groups, projecting his strength in force, hoping to allay any attack that could be incoming from any resistance forces, or leftover elements from the retreating Ubroan army. It never paid to be careless.

Finally, with the gear set up, he dialed into the conference call exactly on time, like the stickler for procedure that he was. While he waited for Vash to answer the call, he leaned back in his chair, reconsidering the events of the day and trying to figure out how to mollify Vash Varless yet again. Vash expected results and he had given the Duros Admiral results…just not the complete victory that he desired.

Frustrated, Pravin kicked the leg of the table he was sitting at, and asked, "What do they want me to do?" to the empty room. He had conducted a near flawless campaign, with the only mistake that he truly regretted being that he allowed himself to be tricked by that false surrender from that Jedi Knight. It wasn't his fault that the Ubroran army was commanded by someone with a modicum of sense, that wouldn't simply engage in a battle that his droid army would win. He was not a miracle worker, he was just an officer.

"Pravin, Coren, are you there?" asked Vash's voice from the comm unit.

"Yes, Admiral," he responded, feeling himself snap into an upright military posture.

"I'm here….Admiral," responded the voice of Coren Vox, Mandalorian, mercenary, murderer. Pravin had never met the man, but he had taken an instant dislike to him and now even viewed him as a rival for the leadership of the droid army. It was rediculous, but more and more Vash seemed to favour the outlaw over his tried and true military advice. So typical of a naval man like Vash to underestimate how hard it was to run an army from safe in their comfortable spaceships.

"So, Pravin, why isn't the planet subdued by now? Why is the Ubroran army not in shambles?" asked Vash Varless, direct and to the point like usual.

Pravin spoke in his best formal voice, "Admiral, I have tried everything in my power to bring this invasion to a close. We control much of the planet right now, it is just a matter of time before the army surrenders or has to fight. And if they fight, we will win," Pravin concluded confidently.

"I have to disagree with the good General here. You have not tried everything," interrupted the low, dangerous voice of Coren Vox, "you haven't tried to intimidate the Ubrorans and you haven't tried to beat them into submission."

Had this been a call that featured video content, he would have tried to stare down the Mandalorian from the safety of his office. Given that he didn't have that option in the audio only conversation, he instead loudly cleared his throat and spoke, "I believe that to be a bad option, Mister Vox. Studies have shown that antagonizing the native population tends to backfire, creating more local support for resistance fighters."

"Studies? I had no idea I was dealing with such an esteemed intellect, General Ecalt. Perhaps next time, I'll remember to bring my library with me to the battlefield."

Pravin snorted in derision and under his breath he muttered, "Barbarian."

"I'll tell you Admiral Varless," continued Coren Vox, "I've been in the cities of Ubrora, and they fear me, they fear what I can do to them. These are not a brave people these Ubrorans. Give me free reign to show the people of Ubrora what the price of resistance is, and this headstrong President Mollek will bow to you within a week."

"I'm intrigued," said the Duros Admiral. "Pravin, do you have any objection to this plan? You seem to be out of ideas as to how to bring this invasion to an end."

Pravin felt lightheaded. This conversation was quickly spiraling out of his control. He leaned forward, against the desk so he could speak into the comm unit more clearly, "I am _not_ out of ideas, Admiral. And I am strictly against any action taken that would rile up the populace of Ubrora. Now is not the time for extreme actions. We have all the cities of Ubrora under control, we just don't have a formal surrender."

"I hear your words, Pravin, but I don't hear any _ideas,_ " replied Admiral Varless testily.

Sweating, even in the temperature controlled environment of the office, he found his voice, despite his tongue feeling heavier than usual, "I think, now that circumstances have changed, we could use the assets we put in place to help facilitate a surrender. That was the point of paying Murgo Boikana all those credits wasn't it? To give the populace of Ubrora a more sympathetic face to associate with the invasion? Now he's caught on camera threatening his own daughter? If we come off like monsters, it won't matter if I give you the planet on a silver platter, we will always be resented as conquerors! I thought the plan was to make us come off as benevolent, to sell the populace on the advantages of working with you. That way you can work _with_ the Ubrorans instead of _against_ them after all this is done."

"That was the old plan. I need a new plan. One that works!"

Pravin's heart dropped into his toes. He didn't have a plan better than that one, at least one that he could actually implement without losing total respect for himself. Unfortunately, it seemed like he was losing the favour of Vash, and thus control over his army, and thus…he was expendable.

While he contemplated that unhappy thought, Coren Vox was taking advantage of his newfound status. "Admiral Varless, let me round up some of the relatives of the well-known resistance fighters. We'll use the hostages as leverage against the resistances that continue to pester us, and put pressure on the Jedi Knights that will feel honor bound to rescue them. Repeat this in the four cities we control, and I believe we'll see a surrender in a fortnight."

Pravin could almost see Vash nodding along with Coren's heinous words, "I like this plan. Pravin, anything to add?"

"You can't seriously be considering kidnapping innocent civilians! That goes against all the rules of civilized combat."

"There isn't any rules out here," said Coren, "My plan is simple and effective. Finally, we will use the military might that we have on this planet for its proper purpose! What use is our army if we never use its strength? Intimidation is a valid strategy, otherwise there wouldn't be rules against it."

Vash laughed, "A worthy argument, Coren. Let's see if our resident scholar can muster any objections."

Not for the first time this conversation, Pravin racked his brain, searching for something, anything to use that would turn the tide of this conversation. His vaunted logic having failed him twice in one day, he tried a last ditch argument. "Vash," he said quietly, "You know me. We've worked together on many occasions. Whatever task you set for me, I always get it done. Sometimes it takes me a while, but I give you results, Admiral. I'm asking you to trust me, one more time. We are so close.."

"I'm afraid, General Ecalt, that you have lost my confidence," said Vash Varless. "Coren, you have my authority to begin your plan. Pravin, you'll give Coren any resources he needs to complete his task."

Pravin slammed his fist on the table, "No! No, I won't stand for this. I will not have my name associated with such…such brutality. I won't turn my army over to Coren Vox. He's not a military officer, he's a mercenary!"

Silence stretched in the conversation, and Pravin hoped that he might have somehow struck a nerve with Admiral Varless. "Pravin, I'm afraid, that I must insist that you return to _Reprisal_ and turn command of the droid army over to him. Transmit to him your access codes…"

"NO! I will not aid this…Mandalorian scum! I resign my commission. Goodbye, Vash. I hope you get what is coming to you." Quickly, he disconnected himself from the call, and sat heavily in his chair, breathing hard.

After a second, realization of what he just did dawned on him, "Oh my goodness, what have I done!" he shouted to the empty room. He had betrayed Vash and signed his own death warrant in one conversation. Never in his life had he done something so rash. But never in his life had he done something that felt so right. "If only I wasn't going die in the next few minutes, that might mean something," he yelled to the room, frustrated.

Quickly, he snapped to his new reality. He theoretically still had control over the droid army, until Vash figured out how to erase his overrides from the droid control ship. So, the droids wouldn't be able to be used against him for a few more minutes at least. But past that…he had nowhere to go and no one to turn to…somehow he didn't think he could ask a Ubroran family to hide him, given that he was a loathed figure in these parts.

Still, he thought that there was one person who might be willing to help extricate him from his peril. He started running down the stairs and ran out into the dying light of Ubrora's sun. He stopped running only long enough to find the correct information to put into his comlink.


	41. Chapter 41: A Simple Plan, Part One

**Derrien -** Thanks for the very detailed review! (I also wouldn't call this a work of literature, more like the insane ramblings of a very bored person :p). I'm really pleased that you were able to follow along with the story despite not being a Star Wars fan! The story doesn't *need* a lot of detailed Star Wars knowledge, but I'm happy to have you along. I think the main thrust of the story has always been to tell the story of a young Jedi that isn't going to be obscenely powerful.

Anyway, Book 3. You're right to say that it's about the duos in this one - Aurine/Tiplee and Nara/Sascha, both of whom are good pairings for very different reasons. And if you like book 3 so far, it only gets better and better (and worse for our heroes!).

Re: Villains - it should be pretty obvious by now that I'm pretty terrible at writing villains - Weliss has the potential to be interesting, but kind of fell apart in the end. I was going to write Vash as more of character, but in the end it just felt like I would be writing way too many characters. So he's definitely sort of a generic baddy, but the story doesn't really suffer for it (especially as Coren Vox becomes more prominent).

Re: Uborans - It's easy to see it from that perspective - man up a fight for your planet! But this is a culture that's not used to conflict or war, I think the average Ubroan thinks that it will all just pass. And while Mollek and the Jedi are trying to convince people to fight and its not cool that they are being invaded, I think the average Ubroran (who is receiving misinformation from Varless-friendly media) just assumes it won't affect their lives in any meaningful way. I mean they are _wrong_ , but thats what they think.

 **Sourmilk** \- That's good that it has a _Phantom Menace_ feel, because it is intentional. Peaceful planet, invasion of droids, Jedi intervention... And yeah, this mission is going to be a parallel of how the Jedi handle war now, and how they'll handle it in the Clone Wars. Heck, having seen war, Sascha might opt out of the partaking of the Clone Wars at all...

 **Speechbubbleme** \- Poor Pravin. He's just in way over his head, and he's just now only realized what he's done. Too little, too late, maybe? But you hit the nail on the head with him and his honor. It's the only thing he really believes in.

A/N - Nothing to say! Moving on.

Please enjoy the next chapter.

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 **Chapter 41: A Simple Plan, Part One  
**

" _Help me Aurine Brynar, you're my only hope"_

-Transmission received by Aurine Brynar from Pravin Ecalt twenty four days into the Invasion of Ubrora

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Aurine Brynar had been on a lot of missions and done a bunch of things that most people would consider crazy. This…this might have been the craziest thing she had ever done. She was heading into an occupied city, looking to rescue a man that was responsible for leading the invasion of a planet, and she was not looking to kidnap him or harm him, but to rescue him. As crazy as it was though, she was sure that what she was doine was the right thing to do.. When she had met Pravin Ecalt, she had sensed that he was a good man, one that had placed in a situation that had gotten vastly out of his control. She had encouraged him to rethink his path and now that he had…or that he had been forced out of his leadership position, he was in need of her help. And despite the inconvenience…she would help.

Her plan was, as Sascha liked to say, 'so simple even an Ewok could do it.' The plan was that she and Tiplee would sneak into Gamudo, and extract General Ecalt by any means necessary. It was more of an outline of a plan than an actual plan, but when there were so many unknown factors, she knew from experience that a flexible plan was better than a detailed one.

She and Tiplee had acquired the fastest speeder that they could to travel to Gamudo, hoping by that the time when they arrived, they would not be too late. The two Jedi had ditched their speeder far outside the city limits, and now the Rishati was taking the lead as they were quietly picking their way through the suburbs of Gamudo. Pravin's last transmission had come from near the city centre, so that was the obvious place for them to begin their search. The only problem was it seemed like the entire droid army was _also_ searching for their former General.

She and Tiplee had already passed at least a half dozen patrols, and just now they were just entering the city proper. While the two Jedi Knights could have easily made short work of the droids, they were intent on keeping themselves hidden from view, knowing that what they didn't need was an entire army of droids out searching for them as well as Pravin Ecalt.

In front of her, Tiplee scurried from the corner of one building and into an alleyway that provided a good view of one of the main streets of Gamudo and paused, waiting for for her to follow. Aurine could only marvel at the way that the Rishati moved in and out of cover. While they'd briefly worked together before coming to Ubrora, Aurine was starting to learn the depths of the talents that Tiplee possessed. Her companion moved fluidly from cover to cover, barely revealing herself, and never making a sound.

Trying her best to imitate the Rishati, she kept her head down and quickly sprinted to the Tiplee's side, wincing at every little noise that she made. In comparison to Tiplee, she sounded like a Rancor smashing through a trash heap. Fortunately, it seemed like no one was around to hear her.

"Do you want to split up?" Tiplee whispered, "We can cover twice as much ground."

Aurine shook her head, "I'm going to risk a call to Pravin's comlink though. We'll never find him otherwise. The city is too big."

"Risky," Tiplee replied. "But I agree. Make the call."

Discreetly pulling her comlink out from under her dark brown overrobe, she dialed for Pravin Ecalt.

It only took a few seconds for a breathless Pravin Ecalt to answer, "General Ecalt."

"General Ecalt, this is Aurine Brynar…"

Pravin cut her off, "Oh my god, you came for me! I wasn't sure you would…I can't believe that you…"

She cut him off, "Pravin we don't have time for this," she said patiently, wishing for the ability to calm him through the Force, something she could only do if Pravin was nearby. "Pravin, where are you?"

"I don't know…I don't know this city at all. I had droids to figure out all those things for me!"

Beside her, Tiplee stirred and grabbed the comlink from her, "Find a landmark, something we can search for. That will be our best way to find you."

"And stay calm," she added, grabbing the comlink back."

"I…see colourful buildings? Everything on this planet is so darn bright, I can't tell one building from another!"

Aurine held out the comlink to Tiplee, asking if she had any ideas, but the Rishati folded her arms across her chest, and adopted a contemplative look. "Pravin, just find a safe spot and wait. We'll find you…eventually."

"Can't. Two...Mandos…on my tail. I've lost them for now, but I'm sure they'll pick up the scent soon…it's been too long since basic training. I'm not very good at this anymore!"

"It might be easier to find the Mandos than Pravin," mused Tiplee.

"Whatever is easier for you, Master Jedi, but I can't evade them forever!" yelped Pravin.

"We'll try to find you, but if you find a landmark, contact us immediately," said Aurine.

"Of course. I hope to see you soon!" he said, his tone of voice indicating that he was back to running.

She replaced the comlink back on her belt. "Cover me, I have to concentrate." Obligingly, Tiplee withdrew her lightsaber, but left it unlit as she relaxed herself, kneeling into a comfortable position. She calmly opened herself to the Force and searched for the presence of a man she had only met once. Aurine knew that she could have found her Padawan across half a planet, and she could detect another Jedi at a substantial distance, but finding Pravin was proving to be difficult. All she could really sense was a pair of malevolent presences that seemed to almost envelop the entire city like a dark, threatening cloud.

Returning to full awareness of herself, she saw Tiplee cock her head in a silent question. Aurine gave her head a quick shake, "I couldn't sense him. I could only sense the malevolence of the Mandalorians that are chasing him. That will have to do."

"Run towards the Mandalorians and the droids that are likely escorting them? Is that a fight we are willing to take on for Pravin Ecalt?" asked Tiplee.

"I am."

Tiplee clasped her shoulder with a surprisingly strong hand, "Then I am too. Let's go hunt."

Continuing to stay out of the way of the ever-increasing number of droid patrols, Aurine and Tiplee used the odorous presence of the Mandalorians in the Force as a sort of beacon to move towards. The only problem was that the Mandalorians always seemed to be on the move, meaning that tracking them a difficult task. "We are running out of time," observed Tiplee calmly, "They will find Pravin eventually, and if they do, it will be too late."

"Time to reveal ourselves then," she said grimly.

"Bold," said Tiplee. Grasping her lightsaber from her belt, she inspected it and grinned predatorily, "I like it."

Smiling in response, but wondering where the much more reasoned and calm Rishati had gone, Aurine let Tiplee take the lead again as they ditched their cover and jogged in plain sight down the road. The few Ubrorans that were walking around the neighborhood this late at night stopped and stared at them in apparent awe. Aurine offered what appeared to be a young couple a cheerful salute before picking up the pace and breaking into a run down the wide, colourful streets of the city.

Around the next bend in the road, a patrol of eight beige battle droids marched in the opposite direction, right towards them. Well, thought Aurine, this is one way to announce ourselves to the rest of the city. Receiving a gentle nudge in the Force from Tiplee, she positioned herself so that she was off Tiplee's left shoulder. The droids seemed quicker than usual in reacting to the incoming Jedi. Perhaps someone had programmed them to realize that the fast moving humanoids moving directly towards them were a significant and deadly threat.

If they had, it didn't really matter. Eight battle droids versus two healthy and motivated Jedi Knights was the stuff of training exercises. All eight were dispatched in a quick, efficient manner. "A nice warm-up," observed Tiplee, kicking around the dislocated parts of the droids with her boot. Spying something in the pile that was still moving, she reignited her blade and drove it through the offending part. Seemingly satisfied, she retracted her blade.

"Well, now everyone knows we are here," said Tiplee.

Aurine glimpsed into the Force, searching for direction as to where to go. "South, I think we are close," she said. Tiplee merely nodded and followed her as they jogged down the street.

As they went down one of the main thoroughfares of the city, the presence of the Mandalorians seemed to grow stronger, which only encouraged the pair of Jedi to move faster. Then, when they turned the corner at a deserted, dimly lit intersection, they could see a harried looking figure fleeing towards them. "That's probably Pravin," she said, waving her arms in the air, trying to get his attention. She was already half-planning their escape when she saw what was following Pravin.

A battalion of battle droids clanked down the street after the fleeing human, being led by a pair of green and blue armored Mandalorians.

"Well, this simplifies things," remarked Tiplee, dropping into a combat stance.

"First the droids, then the Mandos," Aurine replied tersely.

"Pravin first," said Tiplee, putting action to her words, by igniting her lightsaber and running towards the fleeing human.

Aurine paused for a moment, wondering why the droids nor the Mandalorians were opening fire on Pravin. Supposing that it was too late for such questions she ignited her own lightsaber and followed Tiplee to Pravin. The battle droids, once they realized who was running towards them opened fire towards Tiplee and Pravin. The human scurried backwards while Tiplee focused on deflecting the incoming bolts. Once Aurine reached her side, she joined her in deflection duty, and shouted so that Pravin could hear her over the ever increasing din of battle, "If you have a weapon, now is the time to fire it!"

She didn't hear a response from Pravin, so she spared a quick look back, expecting to see Pravin Ecalt cowering behind him, but instead the human had kept running, picking a nearby warehouse and making a beeline towards it. Frustrated by Pravin's apparent cowardice, she almost missed an incoming laser bolt as it singed past her ear. Had she been wearing an earring, the laser bolt probably would have melted it.

While the droids continued to stay at range and fire their blasters, the pair of Mandalorians were casually strolling into flanking positions.

"We need to move!" she yelled to Tiplee.

"Attack?"

"Well it's better than standing here getting shot at!" she said as she deflected an incoming blaster bolt back at a droid, catching it in the leg and sending it crashing to the ground as it emitted a wounded cry.

Beside her, she felt Tiplee gather herself, and she did the same. The Rishati launched herself towards the droid battalion, closing the distance quickly. Aurine followed right behind her, using her companion and her flashing blue lightsaber as cover. In response to the Jedi charging the droids, the two Mandalorians activated their jetpacks, fired a few half-hearted shots towards her and Tiplee that she parried with ease, and took off in the direction of where Pravin had fled. She quietly cursed Pravin's cowardice. If he had stayed near them, it would have been relatively simple to protect him. Now…she hoped he was a good hide-and-go seek player.

Sooner than she thought possible, she was in the midst of the droids, and there wasn't time for conscious thought, only the parry and thrust of close quarters fighting. Moving with all the speed and grace that she had learned from years of practice at the Jedi Temple, she and Tiplee carved through the ranks of the droids.

She wouldn't say that the fight was easy. It was never easy to fight against such a numerical disadvantage, especially as the two Knights had exerted themselves a fair bit just to get here. She would say that the fight was a bit routine. Battle droids were opponents that succeeded more through intimidation and numbers than any sort of skill or quality.

Carving the head off one droid with her emerald blade, she ducked underneath a blast that singed her blonde hair, cursing silently that she had missed such an a dangerous shot. Almost through the droid ranks, she and Tiplee circled back towards the stragglers, finishing off those that had been left untouched by their first pass.

"Did you see where Pravin went?" asked Tiplee, a couple of cuts marring her robe and face, but nothing serious, merely superficial.

She nodded quickly, "He ran into that warehouse over there. Follow me."

Pushing through lungs that protested a distinct lack of recovery time between this moment and tearing through a squad battle droids, she raced towards the warehouse that Pravin had disappeared into. Waiting by the door for Tiplee to join her and to catch her breath for a quick second, she probed into the Force for a split second. She still felt the malevolent presences, and by the strength of the manifestations, she assumed that they were very close by. She also felt someone or something that was deeply fearful, but she couldn't be sure if it was Pravin, or some luckless worker.

Tiplee kicked down the door authoritatively, swinging her blue blade immediately into a defensive position. Sensing no incoming fire, she entered behind her companion and using the Force, she projected her voice deep into the depths of the pitch-dark warehouse.

"I am Jedi Knight Aurine Brynar. Surrender and you will face a fair trial."

The only answer they received was silence as she and Tiplee walked cautiously deeper into the warehouse. Finally a pop of static emerged and then a low, threatening voice said, "Come and find us, Jedi scum."

"Charming," muttered Aurine under her breath.

The warehouse, with its myriad pathways and enclosures was a maze of tight spaces. The only lighting was the glow provided by Tiplee's blue blade and her green one and it cast an eerie light against the backdrop of the warehouse. Around each turn there could be a Mandalorian waiting for them, blaster rifle drawn. Or Pravin could be around the next turn, cowering and waiting to be rescued. Needless to say, she was feeling more than a little tense.

Peeking her head around what appeared to be a discarded fuselage for a farming machine, she had to immediately duck back into cover as a blaster bolt missed the top of her head. The following misses superheated the metal around her and caused sparks to fly from the now blaster-burned machinery. Blinded momentarily by the brightness of the missed shot, it was Tiplee who went around the corner next, her posture low and her lightsaber held diagonally across her body. Yet instead of being shot at by a fusillade of blaster bolts, the Mandalorian retreated further back into the cavernous warehouse.

Aurine blinked, trying to get her vision back to normal. "They are just playing for time," said Tiplee, "we need to find Pravin, and get out of here before the entire army finds us."

"Then we should split up," she said, her eyes finally adjusting back after being momentarily blind.

The Rishati hesitated, then nodded in agreement, "Good hunting. I'll take the left side, you take the right." The Rishati put her words into action by darting past her and to her left, using the available cover like a cloak.

Gritting her teeth, she did the same as her colleague, using the wall hangings and discarded machinery to peer around corners. She thought about calling out for Pravin, but decided against it, thinking that it would only give away her position to the Mandalorians.

Deeper and deeper she went into the warehouse, an increasing sense of foreboding pervading her senses. Aurine would have loved to move slower, more cautiously, but time was a factor, so she took more risks than she would have normally liked.

She turned another corner and almost collided with a tall, armored figure. Instinctively she plunged her lightsaber towards the center of the mass of the Mandalorian that was facing her. The Mandalorian twisted, reacting well, and her lightsaber only carved a slice across the man's midsection. The Mandalorian tried to back away to use his blasters from a safe distance, but the Mando could not use his jetpack in the narrow confines of the warehouse.

That was his undoing.

With only a moderate distance between the two combatants, Aurine knew that the onus was on her to do something about it. So she did. She charged towards the Mandalorian as he backed away, deflecting one, two, three, four shots from his blaster rifle. Then she leapt towards the Mandalorian with a Force-imbued leap, avoiding a fifth shot and putting her in range to use her lightsaber. She could have ended the Mandalorian's life with one swing, she knew. But, she was a Jedi, and when there was a better option, she would take it. Her lightsaber slashed through her opponent's arm, just above the elbow.

The Mandalorian fell to his knees and emitted a grunt of pain, the only acknowledgement that he had been wounded. Aurine pointed her weapon at the Mandalorian's chest, and through her wheezing lungs she said, "Surrender." Then for good measure she added on, "Mandalorian scum."

In response, her downed opponent kicked out with his right leg, catching her just below her right knee. Aurine took a surprised step back, the Mandalorian took the opening to slide his hand towards the blaster pistol on his hip. Shaking her head with displeasure, she completed her grisly task with her lightsaber, ending his life with a simple, painless slash. "Kriffing Mando, you should have surrendered!" she yelled at no one in particular.

Disengaging her lightsaber, she tried to collect her thoughts again. Her job had gotten slightly easier now that one of the mercenaries was down. But she still hadn't found Pravin yet, which was disconcerting. Aurine was halfway done trying to decide on which direction to head, when she heard a shuffle of feet from behind her. She ignited her lightsaber and turned to face…Pravin Ecalt.

"Pravin?" she said, stunned.

Pravin cowered from the ignited lightsaber pointed in his direction, and said in a shaky tone, "Yes…Master Jedi I surrender to you."

"Surrender?" Aurine parroted awkwardly.

"Well…yes, I was an enemy combatant and now…"

Aurine felt a flare of danger in the Force just as Pravin yelled, "Behind you!"

She whirled quickly towards the incoming danger, and saw that the remain Mandalorian had snuck up right behind her. She tried to bring her lightsaber to bear, but the Mandalorian was one step ahead of her, catching her with a punch to her right wrist that made her hand go numb. Her lightsaber dropped from her hand and skittered away from her.

Knowing that she was at a massive disadvantage against her opponent now that she had effectively been disarmed, she fired off an instinctively punch towards her enemy. Her punch landed, and cracked the faceplate of the second Mandalorian. It also broke her hand. A torrent of pain shot up her right arm as her body reacted to the trauma that she had just taken.

That pain distracted her just enough that she didn't see the return punch until it was too late. Her opponent's punch had a much different effect than hers had. The impact caught her just above the cheekbone and sent her spilling to the ground. Stars danced in front of her eyes as she tried to scramble to her feet. Her movements felt slow, like she was trapped in quicksand, and she had only gotten on to her hands and knees when the Mandalorian landed a savage kick to her midsection. Aurine felt her ribs give way and her breath left her chest all at once.

Chest heaving for air, she lashed out in vain with the Force, hoping to knock over her opponent, or otherwise delay him so that she could recover. Her wild Force push missed the Mandalorian by a good foot or so, and the merciless Mandalorian slammed his gauntleted fist into her face once more for good measure. Aurine dropped flat out on the floor.

The world spun around her and she couldn't get her body to respond to any of her commands. She was down, and out. And she was soon to be down and out for good. She heard the whine of a blaster and she braced herself for a short burst of pain and then her imminent death.

After an agonizingly long second, with her addled brain trying to figure out how she was still here, she felt a soft touch on her shoulder and a distant voice talking to her. "Master Jedi…" said the voice.

She groaned, rolled onto her back and stared up at her savior, Pravin Ecalt. The middle-aged former General was literally quaking in his boots, holding the blaster from the first Mandalorian that she had dispatched. "Good timing," she spluttered out, as she wiped her face with her good arm. She didn't bother looking at the result of the swipe, she knew that she probably wasn't a pretty sight at the moment.

Through her daze, she heard Pravin talking to her, "I…well...I had to do something, and I hadn't fired a weapon in some years, not that I was ever some sort of gunslinger, but I…well…some sort of temporary insanity struck me, and I picked up that fallen Mandalorian's weapon and well…"

Through watery eyes, she looked up at Pravin staring stunned at the dispatched Mandalorian that had almost been the end of her, "Pravin you are babbling. Help me up, and help me find Tiplee. We need to get out of here."

Pravin offered her a hand, and she pulled herself to her feet. She wobbled on unsteady feet for a second or two before her balance returned to her. "Where is the other Jedi, you know the one that looked like a demon when she was destroying my droids?"

"Her name is Tiplee," she said tiredly, "and I hope she will be here soon."

It only took a few moments for her to realize that she had Tiplee's comlink number, and that she could just call and talk to her. She blamed her lack of clear thinking on the couple of punches to the head she had taken recently. Aurine had half-finished inputting Tiplee's number when Tiplee raced around the corner, lightsaber ablaze.

She took one look at the two bodies on the floor and then another glance at her woozily standing with Pravin. "Well," she said, "It appears that you didn't even need me at all."

"No," Aurine replied, "I need you to do the hardest part. Get a former General and a concussed Jedi back to safety."

"I do believe I'll manage," replied the Rishati dryly. "Follow me, Aurine, Pravin, I'm sure I can commandeer a nearby speeder that will get us back to base in one piece."


	42. Chapter 42: A Simple Plan, Part Two

**Lord Darth Yoda -** Don't worry, I have Aurine's death (and all major character's deaths) in mind. They'll all be appropriately heartbreaking. You underestimate Pravin though, I think. He's really had a 'come to Jesus' moment (if I may steal that phrase), and I think he'll be a real ally to the Jedi.

 **Mr Insane** \- Good points - Pravin's going to have to win back the faith of the Ubroran populace and especially the army - specifically because he was the general that helped kill many of their fellow soldiers. It's an interesting tightrope to walk, but I wonder if Pravin can handle it. At least the Jedi will (probably) vouch for him.

 **Speechbubbleme** \- That's good that you thought Pravin was actually in danger. I have to say that I'm actually quite fond of Pravin. Sure he's kind of spineless, but he's kind of honorable as well.

A/N - Nothing to say! Moving on.

Please enjoy the next chapter.

* * *

 **Chapter 42: A Simple Plan, Part Two**

" _Am I a hero? Or am I a villain? Sometimes the lines seem so blurred I cannot tell. I'm alive though, and that is all that counts…for the moment at least."_

-From the Journal of Pravin Ecalt, twenty-five days in to the Invasion of Ubrora

* * *

Back in the relative safety of Hesse base outside of Gamudo, Aurine and Tiplee had gone directly to the med center where they released Pravin into the care of a few guards. Once that was done, Aurine was treated by the staff doctor, who put her left hand in a cast and bandaged her remaining cuts. She had taken quite a beating from those Mandalorians, but besides the broken hand and concussion, whose effects were fading, she didn't think of herself being too badly hurt. Relatively speaking, at least. Once the doctor was done with her, she and Tiplee quietly excused themselves and found a quiet spot where they could conference in private. She watched as the Rishati applied an Ubroran medical pack to some of the various cuts and bruises that she had sustained in the rough and tumble battle with the Mandalorians and their droids.

The Rishati noticed her staring, "I would prefer bacta, but it will have to do," she observed sardonically. "I've gotten quite good at doing first aid on myself over the years."

"You okay?" Aurine asked.

"Am I okay?" Tiplee replied, bewildered. "It's not me that has an uncountable number of bandages on her face and her hand in a cast."

"It's not as bad as it looks," she said, knowing that all the wounds she had gotten had been superficial, though she might have a couple of small scars. Meh.

"How is your hand?" the Rishati asked.

Aurine glanced down at her bandaged hand, "It's broken. Guess those Mandalorian helmets are made out of strong stuff. Should heal fine though."

"That punch wasn't exactly the stuff of training holos, was it?"

She adjusted her belt with her right hand, her only good hand now, "No, but I've never really been the type to be confined to 'proper' Jedi techniques."

"Well I won't argue its effectiveness," Tiplee said dryly, "though don't be offended if I don't offer to spar with you."

She smiled at her fellow Jedi Knight's joke. While she knew Tiplee was considered to be something of a serious minded Jedi Knight among her peers, the Rishati definitely was not humorless. Humor was always something that she had appreciated in a companion. Jedi confronted the worst in the galaxy, and being able to laugh about some of the absurdities of their job was a nice release. It was something that her Master had lacked and she had pledged that it would be different with her apprentice, and it was. Sascha, while not an out-and-out jokester like his friends Doro and Trigg, had a lightheartedness to him that had endured even through his darkest moments.

Pausing on that thought, she wondered if her Padawan was still holding on to his sense of humor, wherever he was. This was the longest time she could ever remember going without seeing her apprentice since she had chosen him. Their connection in the Force still seemed relatively strong, and she would experience flashes of emotion from him every now and then. The most common emotion she seemed to get from him lately was sorrow with more than a little hint of exhaustion. She decided that when she had some time, she would contact her Padawan and just try to talk to him, not about the war…in fact she would talk to him about anything but the war…maybe she would throw in a comment about not getting too close to a certain Togruta…

Snapping back to reality, she found that Tiplee was staring at her with a concerned look on her face. "I…sorry…I got distracted."

"Thinking about the Padawans?"

"Yes," she replied simply.

The Rishati gave her one last evaluating look before inclining her head, "I think about them constantly," she admitted. "But we can only help them by doing our job. Which is what we should do now. I think we should talk to Pravin Ecalt, now that he's had his injuries treated."

"Alright, let's go see our…prisoner? Our prize?"

"Let's go see Pravin," Tiplee clarified, leading the way back towards the med centre. The med centre at Hesse base was pretty much what you'd see at any med centre in the galaxy, with one major exception - there were no bacta tanks. Aurine was so used to being treated in the best medical facilities across the galaxy, it was a bit jarring to see one that didn't have a bank of bacta tanks anywhere along the walls.

Shaking her head, and wondering if fighting this war had made the Ubrorans realize that importing bacta would probably be a good idea, she made her way towards Pravin Ecalt's bed. Pravin Ecalt was sitting up on the side of his bed, his hair still matted with sweat and his uniform tattered. Yet there was an air of nobility to the middle-aged man now. Rather than the ruffled, harried, at-the-end-of-his-leash Pravin that they had been dealing with in the city, this Pravin was calmly looking at a datapad with a badly cracked screen.

"You know, we can get you another datapad, Pravin" she said as she strode over.

Pravin looked up in surprise, and then closed down the device, "I was just trying to see what useful information I could get from it. The codes for communicating with the droid army have all been changed, obviously. But I have records of troop movements, communication between myself, Admiral Varless and others. I also have a list of Ubrorans that we paid to be friendly to our cause." Pravin glanced between her and Tiplee nervously, "It's all yours, I'm aware that I'm your prisoner, and that I will be awaiting a trial for war crimes whenever you choose to constitute such a panel that will confirm my guilt. Nonetheless, my information is yours, and I give it freely."

Aurine hadn't realized that Pravin had such a melodramatic side to his personality. Maybe it was just the adrenaline dump that came from being chased across the city by a pair of Mandalorians that had made him so maudlin. "I really don't think you qualify as our prisoner," said Tiplee. The Rishati crossed her arms across her chest, "And we certainly don't think you are a war criminal."

"We haven't really decided what your status is," Aurine admitted. "But I don't think that we risked our lives to rescue a war criminal."

Pravin bowed his head in relief, "I…am happy to hear you say those words, Master Jedi."

"We're glad that we were able to help rescue you from your…predicament," she replied.

"It was nice to do something that was something of a typical activity for a Jedi Knight for a change," commented Tiplee offhandedly.

"Well I'm thankful that you came to help me…and I am sorry that I couldn't see how I was being used by Vash Varless." Pravin closed his eyes in silent pain, "I'd been with him so long, I just felt helpless, like there was no way to escape him." He opened his eyes and met her gaze, "I was wrong to doubt you. You told me that I was braver than I thought I knew. Only when I had no other path available to me did I finally see the truth to those words."

She knelt to bring herself closer to his eye-level, "Pravin. What you did was brave beyond belief. A lesser man would have stayed and followed orders for better or for worse. You stepped forward. You made a stand. Be proud of that."

"If I may add," said Tiplee staring intently at the middle-aged former General, "I have traveled the galaxy, seen many different planets and beings, but bravery, true bravery is something very rare. I think we get used to it too much as Jedi, because we are…taught to be brave in a matter of thinking. But most beings just want to live a quiet life, have a few adventures, and be entertained. Yet you Pravin Ecalt, have done something that many would not have even dreamed of. You did the right thing, even knowing that it would likely cost you everything. There are even some Jedi that cannot do that."

Pravin lowered his head for a moment and Aurine thought that the speech might have reduced him to tears, but when the man looked up again, his eyes were clear and there was a new vigor in his expression. "Thank you, Master Jedi. I…uh…have a gift for you."

"A gift?" she replied warily.

Pravin removed a small device from his jacket. It was smooth and round, and it looked almost like a stylus with buttons on it. Aurine squinted at it, and then shrugged, "What is it, Pravin?"

"It's a one-use communications device. It can send a message of about five minutes in length to just about anywhere in the galaxy, provided a signal can reach there."

"That looks very much like the types of devices favoured by spies and spice dealers, if I remember my briefings," said Tiplee, leaning against a nearby wall, arms folded against her chest. "What are you doing with one, Pravin?"

"This was specially made by my father, Ravar Ecalt. He promised me that if anytime I needed to get a message to him, that this device would allow me to do so. It's probable, even likely that I can get a message through the jamming over Ubrora."

Aurine blinked, processing this information, it seemed far too good to be true. "What kind of message can you get through the jamming?" asked Tiplee.

"A short one," admitted Pravin, "and it would be audio only, but the programming is sophisticated enough to defeat the most advanced jamming procedures. But it only goes to my father. I can't get a message to the Jedi Council, for example. Though of course, I could request that he take a message of yours to them."

She shared a look with Tiplee, but the Rishati's face was a blank slate, obviously her thoughts were elsewhere at the moment, "I think," Aurine said, "that we'd be better off sending a message to your father asking for him to intercede personally, than hoping that he could get a message to the Senate or the Jedi Council. The Senate will not authorize military action outside of its borders, whether or not Ubrora was going to join the Republic anyway. And the Jedi Council…it would take too long for them to gather up the force needed to confront Admiral Varless. And that's if they even believed your father _and_ they wanted to act unilaterally outside of the borders of the Republic, which we are generally loathe to do."

Pravin looked back and forth between the two Jedi Knights, obviously confused, "So, what message do you want me to send? My dad has fantastic resources at his disposal, resources that I'm sure would allow him to cobble together a rescue mission at the very least."

She waved her hands in an expansive gesture, "No, I don't want a rescue mission, I want a battle fleet."

That finally startled Tiplee out of her silence, "Aurine? Have you lost your mind?"

Pravin eyed her curiously, "I tend to agree with Master Tiplee. A rescue mission would allow us to escape the planet, and with our evidence of this illegal invasion, we could return with resources from the Jedi or the Republic."

"But not before Vash could bring in resources of his own," she pointed out, "and he could make retaking Ubrora very expensive in terms of lives lost." She shook her head, "No, the easiest and best way to liberate Ubrora is to have your father gather as large a force as he can and then bring it to attack the _Reprisal_. Perhaps, with the resources from the Ubroran fighter corps and whatever your father can bring, they could disrupt the communications from _Reprisal_ to the droid army. If that happens…we could end the invasion."

"That was a lot of hypotheticals in that statement, Aurine," said Tiplee.

Pravin shook his head, "Not as many as you'd think. I know I can get the message to my father, and I'm sure he'll do whatever it takes to rescue me, even if it takes hiring every mercenary in the sector to come to Ubrora and fight against Admiral Varless. The _Reprisal_ as strong as it is, is just one ship. And it doesn't have a huge complement of droid fighters anymore"

Warming to the idea, she clapped her hands together, "I think we should do it."

Quickly, Tiplee grabbed her arm, "Can I discuss this with you in private?" Not waiting for her to object, Tiplee half dragged her out into the hallway.

When they were in a private enough area, Aurine forcefully removed Tiplee's arm from hers, "What do you want Tiplee? It's not like we have much choice."

The Rishati's bright blue eyes flared with anger for a split second before calming rapidly, "Aurine, are you sure you want to use our one chance to get a message out to try to convince a business magnate to rescue his son? We don't really know Pravin. A few days ago he was in command of the army that was opposing us. Now we're betting on his honesty?"

"I don't sense any deception in him. Did you?" Tiplee shook her head negatively. "Then I believe that we have to use this potential opening in any way possible, as bizarre as it seems."

"Can Ravar Ecalt really help us? Will he really assemble an impromptu fleet just to rescue his son?"

"I've met Ravar Ecalt. I think he will. Ravar is like Pravin. Honor and family mean everything to him."

Tiplee's eyes narrowed, "How long ago did you meet Ravar Ecalt?"

"It was like six years back, and it wasn't for very long," Aurine admitted.

Tiplee pressed a hand to her head, "Great. You realize that this sounds, well, completely insane right? We are going to trust someone who one week ago was second biggest enemy? And how is this going to play out? Ravar Ecalt gets a message from his son out of the blue: 'Dear father, please acquire a battle fleet and proceed with all haste to Ubrora.' Did you even consider how crazy this will all sound to Ravar?"

"Of course it's insane!" she shouted. "This whole thing is insane! But unless you see a better option, I think we need to be open to every insane risk that we can possibly take!"

"What about a rescue mission. We don't need to abandon Ubrora. Just get the information back to the Senate or the Jedi Council. Then, and maybe only then can we defeat these invaders."

Aurine took her right hand and ran it through her hair and down through her ponytail, "What are we doing here Tiplee?"

Tiplee blinked, "I'm not sure I understand."

"I mean, what is our goal here? If we simply want to get off the planet, we could turn Pravin and Mollek and all the resistance leaders over to Vash and he'd probably give us transport off planet for such a betrayal."

"We could _never_ do that," said Tiplee, her voice hard.

"I agree, it would be unfathomable. But we need to admit to ourselves why we are here. We are here in defence of the Ubroran people as a whole, are we not? We are the Jedi, we are the Generals defending them. Don't you think its a bit of a coincidence that for this extraordinarily minor diplomatic mission, there are four Jedi attached to it? We are here for a reason, Tiplee."

"I'm not sure I buy that," said Tiplee thoughtfully.

Aurine was starting to get animated now, "It doesn't really matter. This is an entire CIVILIZATION Tiplee. The Ubroran civilization only really exists on this planet. If it falls to this tyrant, who knows if they'll ever win it back? Ubrora is so insignificant in the grand scheme of things that barely anyone will notice. It'll be a footnote in some chapter of galactic history. But not to these people!" she said, gesticulating emphatically. "To these people, we are the sole defenders in their darkest hour! And thus we must do EVEYTHING possible to defend it, short of embracing the dark side. And if that means eschewing the chance of a rescue, for the faint hope that Ravar Ecalt can conjure a fleet up, than I say we take it!"

Tiplee turned away from her emotional outburst. Aurine felt a bit weak and stuck an arm out against the wall to support her. Well, thought Aurine, that had been coming. But she didn't think it would be quite so...dramatic.

Her fellow Jedi Knight turned around, her expression sober, "I'm never doing this again," she said quietly.

"Doing what?"

"War." The Rishati shook her head, "Never, ever again. This once, I will do it. But never again."

"So I have your support for my plan?"

Tiplee's expression softened, "Of course, my friend. I believe in you. You've gotten us this far. I don't see any need to change course now."

Aurine bowed slightly, "Thank you, Master Tiplee."

Tiplee nodded respectfully, "Of course, Aurine. Now let's go tell Pravin."

Aurine and Tiplee re-entered the room, and she nodded briskly to the middle-aged human, "Send your message, Pravin. Make it a good one, because it might be the key to winning this war. Tell your father we need a fleet. And you can tell him that the Ubroran government will cover his expenses. But we need a fleet, and we need it soon."

For the first time in a long while, Aurine Brynar allowed herself to think that there might be a future where she got off this planet after all.


	43. Chapter 43: The Price That is Paid

**Lord Darth Yoda -** Order 66 is such a bummer, luckily there are lots more stories before that disaster... And yeah, Tiplee so sure that she'll never fight a war again...

 **Mr Insane** \- I think the droids will only be more aggressive with Coren Vox in charge...and I don't think that's a good thing. You're right to point out the the Ubrorans still need to hold on, because they are still badly outnumbered, but they might just have a little bit of hope that could look forward to.

 **Speechbubbleme** \- War will...not be good to Tiplee on her sister. (FYI, they both have canonical deaths that I will be sticking to.) There will indeed be serious consequences for fighting for Ubrora - I'm not even sure that it's the 'right' thing to do, really.

A/N - Nothing to say! Moving on.

Please enjoy the next chapter.

* * *

 **Chapter 43: The Price That is Paid**

" _Father, you said I could always call if I got into trouble. Well, the trouble I've gotten into right now is beyond anything I've ever gotten into in my life."_

 _You see there is this planet called Ubrora…"_

-Transmission from Pravin Ecalt to Ecalt Industries twenty six days into the Invasion of Ubrora

* * *

Lirri Boikana, fresh from another grueling day of leading her resistance fighters into battle, was winding down her day by doing something normal, preparing tea in her kitchen. Usually making tea was a relaxing activity for her, it was something she used to do every day when she had come home from work. Now, it was only with the help of some…herbally infused tea that she was able to sleep at night. Without it, she would be up all night – planning missions, crying over lost members of the resistance, and generally just trying to remember the girl she had been just a few weeks ago.

Behind her, she heard the two Jedi Padawans quietly slipped into the kitchen. She continued stirring her tea, but she had a rather strong feeling that she wouldn't be able to get to sleep as soon as she had hoped. "You want to talk to me, so let's not waste time with the niceties," she said, her tone harsher than she had intended it on being. When she turned around, she saw the two Padawans wince at her bluntness. "Well?" she said, "are we going to talk or not?"

"We do need to talk to you," said Sascha, clearly the diplomat of the pair. Lirri admired his unruffled nature and his ability to encourage people with the simplest of phrases. It was almost as if he could see into a person's soul. Maybe that was a Jedi talent.

Lirri strode over and took her usual seat at her kitchen table, a table that had become home to discussions of tactics, talks about the Force and impromptu memorial services.

The two apprentices sat in their usual seats across from her. She looked at her two companions, but more than that, she used her nascent talent in the Force to probe the feelings of the two Jedi. Sascha was very obviously exhausted. His eyes no longer held the kindness or warmth that he had possessed when she had first met him, and dark bags had formed underneath his eyes. More than physically tired, he seemed emotionally tired as well. His last few raids had not gone well, and his squads had taken more than their fair share of casualties, which seemed to rest heavy on the human's heart. Lirri wasn't sure if she had seen him smile at anyone besides Nara for at least a week. From the reports that she had gotten, Sascha had fought heroically to keep things from going even worse. Clearly, that didn't seem to matter to him anymore.

Nara's tiredness was less recognizable, but it was obvious to Lirri that the Togruta was beginning to fray at the seams. Yesterday she had caught Nara screaming furiously at her friend for not anticipating that a droid patrol was about to encroach on her squad. Lirri wasn't an expert in how Jedi were supposed to act, but she knew that those sorts of outbursts were not the norm. That had been bad enough, yet what had followed had arguably been worse. Left alone after her outburst, the next time Lirri had seen Nara was curled on the floor of her refresher, crying uncontrollably. Lirri had tried to comfort the girl, but her words seemingly had no effect. The only person that had been able to help her, that Nara would respond to, was Sascha. The two of them occupied the refresher for almost an hour before the human was able to guide the Togruta into her bed for a long nap.

Lirri Boikana had come to her own conclusion about these two Jedi. They were spent. Possibly, if they hadn't been wounded early on, things would have been different. But as powerful as Nara and Sascha both obviously were, it was clear that they had limits, and that both of them had either reached them, or were just about to reach them. She didn't want to think of what that would mean, but she assumed that they wanted to talk to her now so that she could arrange transport back to their Masters. Which she would do, she certainly owed them at least that much. She just didn't know how the resistance would survive without them. She didn't know how _she_ would survive without them.

Lirri stirred her tea, "So, I before we start, I wanted to talk about what happened today. And to thank you for saving me."

Today had been a harrowing day for her. She and Sascha had been leading a raid when Coren Vox had appeared, seemingly out of mid air and fired on her and her squad. Sascha had interceded with his teal blade, but not before two of her more veteran raiders had been wounded. Pinned down, Lirri and the rest of the Ubrorans had retreated inside the closest house for Nara to be summoned. Once the other Jedi had reached them, the two Jedi had fought a delaying action while she and the rest of her squad had retreated.

Nearly an hour she and the remainder of her squad had returned to headquarters, Sascha and Nara had arrived looking bruised and beaten and no closer to defeating Coren Vox. Both Jedi had required a medic to patch up their cuts and then had been promptly sedated so that they could recover. Without the Jedi to protect them and plan their raids, the resistance hadn't dared to venture outside again for the rest of the day. With Coren Vox and the Mandalorians always lurking, they needed their Jedi to counteract them. Unfortunately, their Jedi were being worn out.

"You're welcome Lirri," said Sascha. "But we have something important we need to talk to you about."

"You saw what happened today Lirri," said Nara, her eyes cast down at the table, "Neither of us have been right since we've been hurt, and we've been pushing ourselves hard so that we could help the resistance. But, I think we've reached the point that we are doing more harm than good to the resistance. I…can't stop shaking," said the Togruta holding her hand out as evidence. Nara stared calmly at her hand as it shook slightly in nervous twitches.

Sascha calmly clasped her outstretched hand with both of his for a long second before letting go. A brief look of warmth passed between the two Padawans. Lirri had watched Sascha and Nara for a while now, and she wondered if something…romantic was happening between the two. Certainly, they spent a lot of time together, which might not have been indicative of anything. For example, she spent a lot of time around Arslan, and that certainly didn't mean that she an Arslan were an item. Yet, Lirri had noticed that Sascha and Nara would both touch each other in supportive, comforting ways, but if she tried to do something similar, the Jedi would pull back. Lirri didn't particularly care, but she did know that many of her troops gossiped about the two young Jedi and their theoretical romance.

"I've noticed that the two of you seem to be tiring easier these days," she said placatingly. That was another understatement. A couple of nights ago she had tried to wake the Jedi up after they had gotten wind of a crucial shipment of supplies being convoyed into the city. Sascha had stirred, but only after she had shaken his shoulder insistently. She had gone upstairs to wake up Nara, but she couldn't get the Togruta to respond at all. If Nara hadn't been snoring loudly, Lirri might have assumed that the Togruta was dead. She had headed back downstairs to see if Sascha knew how to wake up his friend, only to find that the human had fallen back asleep. Not knowing what to do, she had let the Jedi sleep, and the convoy had entered the city unmolested.

"Nara and I have decided that we need to take a step back from the resistance," said Sascha.

"I understand," she replied, "I'll have Arslan arrange transport for you to rejoin your Masters." Lirri tried to keep her voice confident, but she knew better than anyone that trying to deceive a pair of Padawans, even exhausted ones, was probably not worth the effort.

Nara brought her hands together on the table and looked at her dead in the eye, "Actually both of us feel very strongly that we should remain in Bontha. We seem to have independently come to the same conclusion, that the Force is telling us to stay put."

"We just can't keep going the way we have," added Sascha, "so something needs to change."

Lirri leaned back in her chair, confused, "And what do you think should change?"

"We think that we should officially make you the head of the resistance," said Nara. "And we mean that totally, we'll take orders from you, the whole deal. The only person that will be able to countermand your instructions will be our Masters. Other than that, you might as well be General Boikana."

Sascha picked up from the Togruta, "Personally, I like the term Commandant Boikana, I think it conveys sufficient authority without confusing the command structure, such as it is, too much."

"I…I don't know what to say," she said honestly. She had come into this conversation with expecting a certain outcome, and now she was getting almost the complete opposite.

"You don't have to say anything, you don't even need to accept this promotion," said Sascha.

"But we'd really like you to," added Nara.

Lirri swallowed hard, "Then, I guess I accept."

Sascha and Nara bowed their heads respectfully, "Thank you, Lirri…err Commandant Boikana. With your permission, we'll go to bed," said Sascha.

"Wait," Lirri said, holding her hand up, "I want to talk about a few things."

Nara slumped tiredly in her chair, but Sascha merely nodded, "Whatever we can do to help."

"As your commanding officer, I have some questions for you."

Sascha smiled faintly, "We'll do our best to answer them."

"Okay." She took a deep breath, "Are the two of you involved…romantically?"

"What?" both exclaimed at the same time.

"He's not my type," protested Nara, half-rising from her chair.

Sascha nodded, and discreetly pulled his chair further away from Nara, "And we are Jedi, we don't do relationships," he added.

"I don't care if you do, I'm just curious. You just both seem really close."

"We are close, but don't confuse our friendship for something it isn't," said Nara definitively.

Lirri was almost disappointed at their stringent denial. If anyone deserved some comfort, it was Sascha and Nara. They even seemed like they would make a good couple too. She plunged onward though, "Alright. I have some more questions. I've been reading some of what Sascha has sent me regarding some basic Force techniques, and it is very much appreciated. Look at how good I'm getting." She closed her eyes and concentrated deeply, thinking about her glass of water, and making it move into her hand. When she opened her eyes, she saw that the water had splashed over the sides of her glass, spilling onto the table. Not exactly what she had _wanted_ to do, but it wasn't bad.

Both Jedi stared at the glass, amazed. "That is amazing progression, Lirri," said Sascha.

"I know! A few weeks ago, I had no idea what the Force was, and now I can move things with my mind! I can't do it _well_ , but that I can do it at all still amazes me." She glanced back and forth between the two Jedi, "Thanks for helping me reach my potential. Or at least part of it. But the real question I wanted to ask you two was about the 'Dark' side of the Force. What exactly is it?"

"It's too late at night for philosophy," muttered Nara quietly.

Sascha silenced her with a stern look. "There are many ways to talk about the 'dark side.' First off, I think that I should clarify that there is only one 'Force.' Yet, we allow it can be used for different purposes. As Jedi, we follow the will of the Force, letting it guide us, protecting life, and so on and so forth."

"In short, the 'light side' is selfless, and the 'dark side' is selfish," said Nara bluntly.

"But can't you protect life for selfish reasons?" she asked. "Like protecting your wife just because she is carrying your child?"

"I'm having flashbacks to ethics class," Nara groaned.

Lirri ignored the Togruta, and looked at Sascha, "I'm just saying from the material you've given me Sascha, there doesn't appear to be a lot of difference between the light and dark side, besides intent."

Nara busied herself by inspecting one of her lekku, but Sascha nodded at herand responded, "Intent does have a lot to do with it. I can't really summarize the hundreds of ethics lessons that we got at the Jedi Temple, but it generally comes down to something simple," he said, placing his hands softly on the table. "To use the dark side is to twist the Force to respond to your own desires. To use the light side is to submit to the will of the Force, and letting it guide you."

"How do I know that I'm following the will of the Force? I mean, I'm getting more competent with using it to…you know…do things. I'm not messing up, am I?"

Sascha grinned, "I don't think moving some water around is going to alter the future, Lirri."

Lirri brushed at her face nervously with her left hand, "It just scares me, that I have this power. I don't want to use it in the wrong way."

This time it was Nara who let a faint grin creep on her features, "I think that if you keep thinking like that, you'll be fine, Lirri. The main brunt of our lessons as younglings was always to be wary of our powers."

She nodded to Nara. "Thanks. I have a question. Have one of you ever…fallen to the dark side?"

The two Jedi shared a long glance. "Yes. One of us has. I'll let you guess which one of us has had a brush with the dark side," said Sascha.

Lirri pondered for a moment and then went with the obvious answer, "Nara. She's a bit wilder, more aggressive, something that seems like it might make you more susceptible to this 'dark' side."

Nara smirked, her purple lips turned upwards, distorting her facial markings for a brief instant, "You'd be wrong actually. While I…lost my way for a few years during my training, I've never felt the touch of the dark side."

Surprised by that answer, she saw Sascha wince, "And I fell to its temptations for a few moments. It was a while ago, and it made me stronger, more aware of a glaring weakness of mine, but yes I fell."

"What was it like? I assumed it felt terrible."

Sascha offered her an enigmatic look, "Oh no, using the dark side will feel _fantastic_ , it will feel like this unlimited fountain of power at your fingertips. It's a lie, of course, but using the dark side will feel intoxicating. It's only after, when you realize what you've done, that you feel awful."

Feeling curious about the actual story behind the human's fall to the dark side, but not sure that she wanted to dredge up those memories even further, she decided to move on. "So, I shouldn't be thinking of using the dark side. Even if it will help me save my planet?"

"No," said Nara quickly, "If we feel you slipping to the dark side, we'd have to stop you…one way or another."

"And the same goes for us," Sascha added. "If either of us falls to the darkness, you _have_ to stop us."

"But how can it be worse to have one dark Jedi, than to have my planet free of this infestation?"

Nara's face became grim, "Because one dark Jedi can cause more damage than fifty petty tyrants like Vash Varless."

"I don't believe that."

Sascha shook his head, "Just think of the army that Admiral Varless has. Now put my Master in charge of it. Don't you think that's a scary prospect?"

Lirri swallowed hard and felt her face pale as she envisioned Aurine Brynar, her face a cruel mask, leading the droid army in an assault against the Ubroran army. The blonde-haired Jedi Knight was cutting swaths through the defending Ubrorans, cackling as she did it. It was not a mental image she wanted to recall ever again. "I think I understand now," she added somewhat unnecessarily.

Sascha nodded politely, "Unless there is anything else, Nara and I should head to sleep."

Lirri glanced over at the Togruta, who almost appeared to be half-asleep already. "One last thing." Nara sighed and placed her head on the table. Sascha rolled his eyes at the disrespect being shown, but Lirri wasn't bothered. This wasn't the army, nor would it ever be. "I wanted to ask you both about a project Arslan has going down by the spaceport. He's using a ton of our non-combat personnel, but when I asked him what the project was, he said it was for your Masters."

A look of total confusion passed between the two Padawans. "No one has said anything to us about a project involving the spaceport. Isn't it basically rubble, anyway?" said Sascha.

"It looked pretty bad the last time I walked past there," she responded, "Which is why I was confused."

"Do you want us to ask our Masters about it?" Nara asked.

Lirri shrugged, "You could, if you wanted to. I was more curious than anything."

The two Padawans shared another confused look, which was more than enough to convince Lirri that the two Jedi were being honest with her. She shrugged to herself and made a note to ask Arslan about it tomorrow. "Padawans you are dismissed. I want you both to get a good rest. We'll handle things without you."

Nara slowly dragged herself to her feet, but Sascha nodded and snapped into a crisp salute, that she returned. The two Padawans retreated to their respective rooms, Nara to the guest room upstairs and Sascha to the living room. Lirri waited in the kitchen until she heard both Sascha and Nara clamber into their beds. Deep in thought, ran a delicate finger around the top of her glass. Comandant Boikana had a nice ring to it, she decided. She wondered if her father would agree.


	44. Chapter 44: A Gift From the Force

**Lord Darth Yoda -** Haven't seen Rogue One yet (I know that's blasphemy. Seeing it tomorrow!). As for your comment - I do think you are on to something - lets see if you are right (you usually are!)

 **VibrantViola** \- Sascha and Nara really tried to do too much, but they kind of stunted the growth of the resistance at the same time. Now we'll see if they can do it alone. And as to why Aurine isn't telling Sascha and Nara - they're playing their cards close to their chest, for now. After all, the less people know what is happening, the less chance the secret gets out.

 **Speechbubbleme** \- Sascha and Nara's relationship is, and will always be interesting. Thanks for your comments as always.

A/N - This was a painful chapter to write, and edit. This was the first chapter I ever wrote that I actually got stuck on. I had to start writing the following chapters so I didn't get slowed down in writing the story before I finished this one.

I wanted to wish everyone happy holidays!

Please enjoy the next chapter.

* * *

 **Chapter 44: A Gift From the Force**

" _While I am still under a 'house arrest' as one could say, I'm still being given information as to the progress of the war. It seems that the two Jedi Knights will wait for as long as possible, and then offer battle when my father comes with his fleet._ If _he comes with his fleet. I think he will, but I do not know what the cost in lives will be in just getting to that point._

-From the Journal of Pravin Ecalt, twenty nine days in to the Invasion of Ubrora

* * *

Lirri Boikana took aim down the sight of her blaster rifle, eying the commander droid that was her target. The commander droid was overseeing a cadre of Ubrorans civilians that were repairing a communications array. She shook her head dejectedly. Before the war, yellow had just been another pretty colour. Now yellow indicated commander droids. Now, yellow meant warning. Lirri wondered if she'd ever be able to look at that shade of yellow without involuntary reacting against it. She doubted it. So not only was this war potentially going to engulf her planet, it was going to ruin a perfectly good colour too.

Waiting for the signal from the worker that Arslan had arranged to be a part of this repair operation, Lirri reflected on the past few days. With the droid army being unofficially handed over to some mercenary in a suit of armor named Coren Vox, the droids had stopped patrolling the city as a show of force and instead had started collecting groups of Ubrorans at random and making them work doing menial repairs to the city, presumably as punishment. The irony that droids were making flesh-and-blood Ubrorans do the busywork that they would normally be doing was not lost on her either.

What really, deeply, boiled her blood though, was this sick propaganda campaign that was being voiced by all the broadcast stations on Ubrora. They painted these clean-up efforts as repairing the damage that the resistance had done to the beautiful cities of Ubrora. Of course these reports glossed over the fact that without the invasion of Vash Varless, there would have been no need for any resistance fighters at all! She had assumed that her fellow Ubrorans were smart enough to realize the obvious lies that were being told to them. Yet Arslan was reporting that public sentiment had been swinging away from the resistance and towards the invaders! From what Arslan was hearing, the people of Ubrora just wanted their lives to go back to normal. They didn't really care who ruled them, only that their lives would essentially remain the same. Lirri only had disdain for anyone who thought that way.

The broadcast she had watched last night had gone even further. In an EUN 'exclusive,' Manor Yoshara had sat down with her father for a one on one interview. She had hoped that her father might have at least _tried_ to play neutral, considering she was the public face of the resistance and he was still her father. Instead, Murgo had his best politician face on, and he had declared that the leadership being displayed by President Mollek was going to lead Ubrora straight to a catastrophe. Her father said that he had spoken to Vash Varless and he said that the Duros promised that he would not rule over Ubrora, instead he would appoint a native Ubroran to the office of President. It didn't take much deductive reasoning to figure out whom Vash was likely to appoint as President. Yes, it seemed her father's lifelong ambition to be President of Ubrora might just come to fruition. In the worst possible way.

All those thoughts jumbled around in her head while she waited for the signal, just waiting for the moment, another moment that would bring her world closer to freedom. Her late night talk with the Jedi had crystallized some things for her. For one, now she was very mindful of controlling her emotions in these tumultuous times. Previously she had been fairly wayward with her thoughts, letting her anger, her fear dictate her actions. Now she kept focused on the 'good' things. Like how she was fighting for freedom, and fighting to protect her fellow Ubrorans.

After a few moments of waiting she saw the worker that Arslan had slipped inside the work group make his move. Making it look like an accident, the young Ubroran dropped his pack with all his tools, scattering them everywhere. All around him, the other workers groaned and began helping the young Ubroran put the tools back in their proper place. Yet now, with an excuse to clamber around the large mechanical contraption, he began withdrawing small objects from his pouch and hiding them on vulnerable sections of the communications array.

His job done, the worker scampered away from the scene of the crime, wiping his hands dramatically down the right side of his leg, twice. "That's the signal," she hissed to Sekac. The unflappable Sekac merely nodded and used his comlink to quietly inform the others, in case they had missed the signal.

Twenty seconds passed. Their plant, now back at work, pointed down the street and shouted loudly in a dramatic voice, "It's some of those damn resistance fighters. And they are coming this way!" Acting like a typically scared Ubroran, their plant bolted in the opposite direction, his finger now resting on the improvised trigger to the explosives he had just laid.

The dull-witted, or dull-programed droids, immediately stopped paying attention to the workers that they were overseeing and formed up toward the incoming 'resistance fighters.' Of course, there weren't any resistance fighters incoming, they were just a bunch of Arslan's non-combatants dressed up to look threatening. It was all a distraction and these droids were about to be scrap metal.

After the countdown ended, the resistance fighters in Lirri's squad emerged from their hiding places and opened fire. Lirri had been keeping her aim on the droids with the yellow commander markings and picked him off with a textbook headshot, before using her position to lay down fire in bursts that were not as accurate, but kept the droids from taking accurate shots at _her_ troops. Most of her squad were seasoned veterans now, and those that weren't were quickly brought up to speed. The battle was short and swift, and it pleased her to see the droids destroyed without any problem, it was a far cry from when they had first started, when they would have needed the Jedi just to protect them from the droids.

Droids defeated, Lirri tapped her comlink, sending a signal to the Ubroran who had planted the explosives. The whole bit with the explosives had been Arslan's idea, and she hoped that it had merit. Arslan, using all the data he had acquired from their numerous raids had pointed out that reinforcements always got sent to investigate where the resistance attacked. Usually, the resistance fighters had already left by the time the reinforcements arrived, but Arslan pointed out the opportunity, if they left some explosives behind, they could potentially take out the reinforcements as well. The greater hope was that they might be able to take out one of the Mandalorians that had seemed to have made Bontha home in the past few days. Though that was probably little more than a dream.

Hopping down from her perch, she joined Sekac, who was already jogging back to base. Their headquarters had changed three times now, a simple precaution to keep those who might wish to attack the HQ of the resistance. Lirri was glad that the resistance had mostly stopped using her house, it was just such a pain the hindquarters to always be cleaning up after everyone…

Back at headquarters, which was now an old warehouse that belonged to a family of pro-resistance businessmen, she made her way over to Arslan and Ovans, who were immersed in datapads and maps. Seeing her return, Ovans nodded respectfully, such a dramatic change from when they had first met. Yet now they were comrades in arms, and while she didn't think she'd ever be friends with Ovans, there was a profound respect between the two of them now, "How did it go?" he asked.

"Part one was a success. We'll have to wait to see if part two has the returns that we are hoping for."

"It will work," said Arslan distractedly, not taking his eyes off whatever he was reading, "91% of the time, the droids follow up our attack with reinforcements. We just have to hope we don't get unlucky."

"We have something important to show you," said Ovans.

"Yes, bring the Jedi here and we can start planning," said Arslan.

Lirri hesitated, "The Jedi are…doing something themselves today. We are on our own."

"Can't you…contact them? This is important."

"So is what they are doing," she said. A week ago that pronouncement would have started up an argument, but things were different now. Now the conversation just moved on.

Arslan scratched at his face, "Well, I suppose we don't need them for this." Arslan stretched out his limbs and pointed to something on his datapad. Curious, Lirri moved so that she could peer over Arslan's shoulder. On the datapad, what appeared to be a live recording played on the device. It showed a battalion of droids escorting a convoy of supply speeders.

"Another supply convoy? What are they building now?" she asked no one in particular.

"That's the thing," said Arslan, "we have no idea."

"I don't like not knowing what my enemy is doing," she responded.

"I don't think anyone does," chimed in Ovans.

"Well, there is a simple way to find out. We attack it, and take the supplies…or whatever it is," she said.

Ovans and Arslan shared a brief look, "It seems simple enough, I'll plot out their travel path so you can ambush the convoy, it's not overly protected, and so it should just be another attack."

"I'll round up the troops then," she said definitively, "I'll take Sekac as my second in command." Both Ovans and Arslan nodded and went back to their planning.

Lirri had to give the Jedi credit, the simple act of naming her head of the resistance had quelled much of the infighting, and had let everyone slip into their best roles. Arslan as the head of intelligence and non-combat operations. Ovans as the secondary commander and tactical support. Sekac as the reliable second in command and adept warrior. Now, more than ever, the resistance felt stronger, ran smoother and seemed to resemble an actual, coherent fighting force.

It only took a few minutes for her squad to be assembled by Ovans. Lirri walked into the room, which she tried hard not to notice was pretty clearly a spare bedroom that had been hastily converted into a briefing room. The room was badly cramped, but her squad moved to make room for her.

Without a holoprojector, she did most of her talking without any visual aid besides an oversized datapad that whenever she pointed to it, her squad had to squint at the screen to view. For as much as the resistance had modernized it was still a bare bones operation.

"Will the Jedi be coming with us?" asked a hopeful, young voice.

Lirri stalled for a moment before smiling magnanimously, "Why don't we show the Jedi that we Ubrorans can get things done on our own without their help." Grins and rounds of backslapping greeted that pronouncement.

Someone in the back piped up, "We have our own Jedi, we have you, Lirri." Lirri plastered a false smile on her face and hoped that no one would notice how uncomfortable that statement made her. She might be robed like the Jedi and comport herself like one of the leaders of the resistance, but she had no doubt that she was nothing but a pale imitation of a Jedi.

The truth of it was that neither of the Padawans had awoken at their usual time this morning. In Lirri's opinion, both the Jedi needed rest and she hoped to give them some today. If that meant taking on a larger workload today, that was fine with her. She would survive.

Before long, she and her squad were in position, waiting for the mystery convoy to make its appearance. While she waited for her scouts to report in she tried to disabuse herself of the bad feeling that had seemed to settle into the pit of her stomach. This was just another raid, she told herself, there was no indication that there was anything nefarious going on. Still, the feeling persisted.

"Here comes the convoy," said Sekac, who had saddled up beside her silently.

The convoy came into sight, a battalion of droids escorting a set of eight supply speeders that were apparently heading to the city centre. Lirri had no intention of letting them get there.

"Launch a probing attack and let's see how they respond."

Sekac was gone in a flash, silently moving back to relay the orders. Lirri knew that she was being cautious, but she felt like being cautious at the moment. If there was one thing working with the Jedi had taught her, it was to trust her feelings. Restless, she decided she would observe the initial attack. She poked her head around the corner, and saw the convoy of large supply speeders and its droid escort.

Lirri only saw a little movement before the attack came. Taken by surprise, the droid escorts were quickly overwhelmed and dispatched. Lirri felt pride blossom in her chest, that ambush had been perfectly executed. The resistance truly was formidable now, "I hope you are watching, dad," she whispered under her breath.

The convoy, which had been slaved to the droids that had been escorting it, came to a halt. A single Ubroran, Garat, an veteran of the resistance, moved forward to inspect one of the supply speeders. Bulkier than a standard speeder, the ugly brown supply speeders were as ungainly as they looked. Garat unlocked the cargo pod with a blast from his rifle and then peeked his head inside. He seemed rather confused by what he saw inside and she started walking over herself, wanting a first-hand look. Then, a chill ran down her spine and the supply speeder exploded, engulfing the confused Ubroran in its orange glow.

The first thing Lirri felt was the heat from the explosion. The second thing she felt was a sharp pain in her right arm and leg as she turned away from the blast and dropped to her knees. Buffeted backwards she bounced back to her feet despite the acute pain. The supply convoy was still intact, but several of the supply speeders were destroyed, and from the others…large armored figures started to emerge.

The Mandalorians are here, she realized. Lirri instantly saw the flaw in her plan. The Mandalorians were smart enough to know that if they paraded an important looking convoy down the middle of the city, that they'd feel obligated to check it out. They knew that the convoy would be attacked and when we did…that they could trap us here...

"Run!" she screamed, "it's a trap!" A few of her troopers heard her and started a somewhat organized retreat. Most didn't hear her over the inferno that was a few meters away. Lirri cursed and fled back in the direction of her troops…maybe if she could get word out quickly, that the damage wouldn't be too bad…

The Mandalorians fell on the disorganized resistance fighters immediately, Lirri saw one Mando, her armour a little smaller than the others, pick off a fleeing Ubroran with a long-range shot from her dual wielded blaster pistols, before dodging some incoming fire by falling neatly to one knee.

Lirri turned and leveled her blaster rifle to take a shot at the prone Mandalorian, but before she could, she felt an impact on her right shoulder and pain ripped through her body. Her whole world was a blaze of pain, and she felt herself collapse to the ground.

"Lirri!"she heard Sekac yell.

More people were yelling, some people were screaming, but Lirri didn't know what was going on anymore. She was in such tremendous pain that she was using all of her remaining power to not cry out and reveal her position in the ongoing firefight. Then, without warning, darkness swallowed her world whole.

When Lirri Boikana came to, she was not lying in the middle of the road like she had been, instead she was inside a small house with a familiar face staring worriedly at her. "Sekac," she moaned, "What happened?"

Sekac crouched in front of her, "We are under attack. I pulled you from the road, and told everyone to scatter. I think we are the only two left behind."

Still feeling lightheaded she closed her eyes for a moment, "What's my condition? I can't feel much of anything."

"You took a blaster shot to the right shoulder. You need medical attention, for now I've used the freezing spray to dull the pain, though it's a temporary measure."

"I'm still in tremendous pain," she said, as she opened her eyes and risked a glance at her wounded shoulder. Her shoulder was barely recognizable as such. It was charred black and she felt nauseous even looking at it. Stay focused on the moment, she told herself, "So what is our escape plan, Sekac?"

"Escape plan? I don't have an escape plan!"

If Lirri hadn't been in excruciating pain, the sight of the normally unruffled Sekac losing his composure would have filled her with fear. As is, she wasn't capable of feeling much of anything. "Then come closer and I'll give you one." Sekac obediently moved closer, and she spoke in a clear tone, "Run, leave me here. Save yourself."

Sekac looked shocked, "Lirri…no. I can carry you…" he begged.

"I order you to leave me!" she screamed, causing her shoulder to ignite in pain. Somehow, deep down she knew that her path was ending here. She didn't want anyone else to go down with her. Somehow, she felt more at peace with this decision than any other decision she'd made recently. This was the right decision, the only decision. She remembered in some of the files that Sascha had sent her that some Jedi before their deaths felt a sense of serenity before they passed. Lirri wondered if that was what she was experiencing right now.

Sekac hesitated, clearly deciding whether or not he should obey her. She reached out and touched him with her good arm, "It's okay Sekac. This is my path." She got choked up for a second, "Tell everyone that…that they should keep fighting. Don't doubt that we are doing the right thing. Tell Sascha and Nara...I'm worry. Now go!"

Sekac, touched her face gently, which was the most intimate gesture she'd ever seen the hardened hunter ever make, "You will be remembered Lirri Boikana. You will be remembered for being the best of us. I give you my solemn promise that we will fight to our last breath is taken from us."

"Thanks…Sekac," she said through the tears that had suddenly appeared in her eyes.

Sekac snapped into a sharp salute, which she returned, though not without racking her body with pain one more time. She closed her eyes to fight the pain, and when she opened them, Sekac was gone and she was alone. She flopped onto her back, waiting for death.

With nothing better to do, she contemplated her life. She had lived a good life before the invasion, but she had been aimless, lacking a real direction in her life. That had all changed once Ubrora had been invaded, she'd found a real calling with the resistance, her life finally had a purpose. Over the past weeks, she'd lost contact with her friends, her family and the resistance had become her family. She hoped her mom didn't blame her for her choices…she hadn't spoken to her in so long….

Her reverie was interrupted by the sound of the door opening, "Sekac, I swear by the moon if you came back for me, I will…" her words died in her mouth when she saw that the person who opened the door was not Sekac, but Coren Vox and the female Mandalorian she had fired at in the street earlier.

"Well, well, well, look what we have here," drawled Coren in his harsh, accented basic, "it looks the trap has paid off bigger than I expected. It's nice to see you again, Lirri Boikana."

"I wish I could say the same, Coren," Lirri spat in between pained breaths. If she could just find a blaster or something, she might be able to take Coren unawares. She'd love nothing more than to take Coren down with her. Unfortunately, even sitting up was hard, forget looking around at all, getting her eyes to focus was enough of a challenge for her right now.

"What do you want to do with her boss?" said the female Mandalorian, her voice surprisingly soft and tender, "She's hurt pretty bad."

Coren came over and nudged her shoulder. Lirri cried out in pain, biting her cheek so hard that she thought she might have drawn blood. "That was a good shot Andar. Crippled her, but left her alive for questioning."

Lirri, her vision blurred, found the biggest mass in front of her and spat. Coren laughed, "Insolent to the end. Well, I applaud your warrior spirit, Lirri."

"Just kill me and be done with it. Spare me your gloating."

"We owe her that much, boss," said the female Mando.

"You are right, my dear. Lirri, I promised your father that I wouldn't harm you, but I think he'd be rather cross at the way I'm treating you now." Lirri felt Coren crouching over her as she lay, her breath coming in shorter and shorter gasps. "I'll grant you the honor of asking if you have any last words."

Such a cliché, thought Lirri. She managed to open her eyes long enough to see the figure that was overtop of her, she wanted to look at her killer, look into his eyes…well, his helmet. Then, she wasn't staring at a helmeted figure anymore, she was seeing something completely different.

A vision.

In her vision, it was a bright vibrant day on Ubrora, and she saw families and young people out celebrating. Ubrorans from all social classes gathered in the main square, and she saw a statue that had just been unveiled gleaming in the light of the afternoon sun. While she watched, Ubrorans dropped flowers or incense or other tokens of gratitude placed in tribute at the base of the monument. She smiled, knowing what that meant.

Lirri propped herself up into a sitting position. Somehow her shoulder didn't hurt anymore. All she felt was serenity. She stared up at the helmeted thug that stood before her and she said in a clear confident voice, "My planet will be free. I have foreseen it."

Coren Vox snorted derisively and pointed the blaster pistol downward towards her. Lirri made no move to escape, to resist. There was simply no point.

She said a silent goodbye to all the people that she'd miss. Her brother. Her mother. Sekac. Arslan. Nara and Sascha. Her father.

Time slowed to a crawl.

She saw Coren's finger pulling the trigger.

Then, there was only peace.

Only the Force.


	45. Chapter 45: Reaction

**Lord Darth Yoda -** Another one of your insanely accurate predictions comes true.

 **thejoker122** \- They didn't, unfortunately.

 **Speechbubbleme** \- Don't worry, I always got choked up writing this chapter (I _hate_ killing off my characters, especially the ones I like). There's a few emotionally charged chapters coming up, though perhaps not as out and out sad as this one.

A/N - Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas and all that good stuff! We're heading into a few of my favourite chapters that I've ever written, so I hope you enjoy reading as much as I did writing.

Please enjoy the next chapter.

* * *

 **Chapter 45: Reaction**

" _I'm saddened beyond words to hear of the death of Lirri Boikana. From the little I knew of her, she seemed like the type of leader that this planet desperately needed. I can only hope that her sacrifice, her bravery strikes a chord with the average Ubroran and rouses them from their slumber. Maybe now, the planet will rise up and throw off its shackles."_

-From the Journal of Pravin Ecalt, twenty nine days in to the Invasion of Ubrora

* * *

 _Shortly before the death of Lirri Boikana_

"Come on you sleepy Togruta, time to wake up."

Nara groaned, pulled her covers tighter and turned to her side, away from the voice, "Just five more minutes," she said sleepily.

She had been having such a nice dream. In her dream, she had been in a nice, upscale cantina and there had been a score of cute Togruta boys all buying her drinks and vying for her attention. Sascha was there too, of course, but he was just sitting across from her in the booth, clearly very amused by what was going on and not at all jealous of the attention she was receiving. The perfect platonic friend.

One of the male Togruta stood and walked towards the booth. Sascha, knowing how to get out of the way when required, quickly made an excuse and scurried off. Nara stared openly at the tall, handsome Togruta, who smiled softly at her. Of her various suitors, she had liked this one best, she liked his dark red coloured skin, she liked his nice white and dark blue montrals, perfectly formed even though he was only just entering adulthood. Broad-shouldered and graceful, he had a nice leanness to him, and he made her heart beat faster just by smiling at her.

The handsome Togruta stopped at her booth, let a hand brush softly against her shoulder and she shivered in pleasure…

…and then she woke up.

"Nara!" Someone outside knocked on her door loudly, "Wake up!"

"Go away Sascha!" she shouted. If she could only have five more minutes, she was sure she could get back to her dream and start kissing that handsome Togruta…

Apparently, she wasn't going to get five more minutes, as Sascha opened the door and entered her room, eyes closed, "Nara are you decent?" he asked.

She groaned, "Please Sascha, you know I sleep fully clothed, like any good Togruta." She slept in her normal robe, like most of the Jedi that she knew. That was how she had slept as a youngling and how she slept now. Old habits died hard.

Her nose picked up on something that smelled good and she felt her mouth salivating in preparation for eating a meal. She turned over on her side to see Sascha holding a plate of meat rolls. The rolls were clearly processed and had been recently reheated, but her stomach obviously didn't care. "I made breakfast," Sascha said, "Though I'm not sure how you can eat meat for breakfast."

"Hello? Carnivore here. Meat equals delicious. Better than all these vegetables that give me indigestion."

Sascha smiled faintly, and left the plate on her dresser, "Sure, whatever. Have your meal and then join me downstairs, we should make use of this time that Lirri is buying for us."

Right. The war. Nara flopped back into her bed and all the pain and the hurt and the loss of the last few weeks all came rushing back to her. Tears welled in her eyes and her chest heaved with a little sob. She desperately wanted to go back to her dream, where her biggest worry was which of the handsome boys she wanted to kiss first, instead of this…this nightmare.

After a moment she regained control of herself and checked that Sascha hadn't seen her little breakdown. He hadn't. Nara sighed in relief. This war was so hard on her, she hated that she had become so weak and emotional. She didn't want Sascha to worry about her, well, more than he clearly already did. She had never been under such constant stress before and she had been experiencing so many nightmares, nightmares about Ubrora being engulfed in flame. But the one nightmare that had stuck with her was the one where she woke up and she was entirely alone. No Sascha. No Aurine. No Master Tiplee. No Ubrorans. Just a completely empty planet, a nightmare in every sense of the word, a nightmare that represented her fear of being alone. In comparison, that dream about hunky Togruta boys had been absolute paradise in comparison. Nara thought that she had a little resolve left, but she was quickly running out of it, and she didn't know what was going to happen when it did.

That breakdown that she had a few days ago still weighed heavily on her mind. She had actually lost her temper at another Jedi, a friend, her _best_ friend and when she realized that she had…gone away, almost, like her consciousness had departed her body. The next hour or so of her life was just a blank space in her memory. From talking with Sascha, she learned that she had curled onto the floor of the refresher and cried uncontrollably for almost an hour. The only person that she had responded to was Sascha. No matter how horrible this war had gotten, it still seemed that their bond was holding. Maybe it was the only thing keeping her going.

Nara clambered out of bed and started gnawing away at the meat rolls that Sascha had left for her. While it certainly wasn't the best produce that Ubrora had to offer (needed more spice), she wasn't going to complain, especially as it had been hand delivered to her room still nice and warm. She was lucky that Sascha was here with her, his little kindnesses like preparing this meal were, well, they were keeping her sane. He was a true friend, and she wasn't sure where she'd be without him.

She stripped off her old robe and went to the closet to select a new one. One of the great ironies of this mission was that she was finally getting a nice choice of wardrobe. Her old robe had been destroyed and several older Ubrorans had donated these custom made, more colourful robes as a way of supporting the war effort in their own, unique way. She quickly perused the colourful robes before settling on one of the less vibrant ones.

She actually liked the Ubroran-style Jedi robe that had been given to her, it was made of softer material (Jedi made robes didn't bother with anything more than the most utilitarian of fabrics), had a nicer cut (accentuating some of the good parts of her physique) and the nice blue colour made her purple skin look nice. Yet, when she looked in the mirror, all she saw was a tired Togruta staring back at her.

Quietly she went down the stairs and into the main part of the house. In the main hallway Sascha was programming instructions into the small, circular, housekeeping droid, clearly struggling with the unfamiliar design. "You don't need to do that, you know," she said.

Sascha looked up at her and then back at the droid, "Thought I might accomplish something nice for our host, considering she is doing us a massive favour today."

"I suppose. I'll be in the other room, meditating. Feels like forever since we just sat and meditated together."

Sascha glanced up at her, "Feels weird that _you_ are the one suggesting a meditation session."

"Must be your influence," she laughed.

Sascha smiled, but it didn't quite reach his eyes. He looked so tired today, it almost seemed to radiate off him in the Force. He was being strong, quite possibly just for her, but she knew him well enough to know that his strength, much like hers, was on the verge of failing.

That delightful thought in mind, she pulled a large pillow off of one of Lirri's recliners and laid it underneath her. As she settled into a comfortable position, she started her mental checklist for meditation. Meditation had never come easy to her, she would admit that, but she had always been able to find inner peace. Except today. Today it was completely elusive. Whenever she tried to look inside of herself and find that little place of peace that she had always possessed, it wasn't there.

Her frustration was just about to boil over when she felt Sascha's soft touch on her shoulder. Through that small physical connection, Sascha poured patience and understanding, and almost immediately her frustration flowed out of her. Nara reached out with her eyes closed and touched him on the wrist, sending gratitude through that connection.

She could sense Sascha getting ready to join her in meditation and she was thankful for it. Sascha always led their meditations together, partly because he had an affinity for meditation and partly because he was just better at it than she was.

She was about to drop her mental shielding to allow Sascha in when she felt a cry of distress echo through the Force. Immediately she honed in on the cry, trying to decode who it was from. Quickly, she surmised it wasn't from her Master, and with a little more effort she decoded that it hadn't come from Aurine.

The two Padawans came to a similar conclusion at the exact same time, "Lirri!" they both shouted. They bounced to their feet, collected their weapons and were out the door in seconds. With the cry of distress and now pain echoing through the Force, the Jedi used it as a homing beacon as they raced through the streets of Bontha.

"We should stop at HQ, and collect reinforcements," puffed Sascha.

"We will get their quicker if we go directly," she said through deep, sucking breaths. Without the Force to power through her fatigue, Nara knew that she couldn't exert herself this much. But the Force was with her, for now.

Nara started to outpace Sascha, who was struggling mightily just to keep her in sight. She considered slowing down, but decided against it. Lirri needed immediate help that much was clear to her, and if she could get there quicker than Sascha, she would.

The Togruta was rounding a corner when the sensation from Lirri changed. Now it felt like she was reaching out…and saying goodbye.

"Nooo!" she yelled in the middle of the street.

Behind her, she heard Sascha make a similar exclamation.

Then, with a shudder in the Force, Lirri's presence faded.

Nara, gasping for breath in the middle of the roadway, sank to her knees, feeling tears coming to her eyes. She's gone, she realized. That means…she died.

That thought was like receiving a particularly hard punch to her stomach.

Lirri died because we weren't there, she raged at herself. Another innocent life swallowed whole by the war. Another loss under the watch of her and Sascha.

Except this loss was the most painful yet.

She was going to continue recriminations at herself, when she felt a hand clasp hers, "Come on Nara, get up," said Sascha. "We can't focus on…what happened. We need to make sure that a rescue mission isn't launched for a person that is…gone."

She yanked her hand away from his, "Dead. You can say the word, Sascha." She kept her eyes closed. She didn't want to open her eyes to a world that was this cruel, this hopeless.

"She's joined the Force, like we all will at some point, Nara."

That platitude broke something inside of her. Her eyes snapped open, and she grabbed a hold of Sascha's collar and started yelling directly at his face,pressing her nose right into his cheek, "How can even say such a thing? Lirri died! She didn't join the Force, or whatever lie we are taught to regurgitate at the Temple. She died! We'll never hear her laugh again! We'll never see her improve her ability in the Force! Lirri wasn't even twenty-five years old! And now she's gone forever!"

She then broke down, sobbing uncontrollably in the middle of the street on this unfamiliar world, during a war that she wasn't even sure was worth fighting anymore.

Sascha held her close for a while she sobbed. Then as the flow of tears ended, he spoke to her quietly, confidently, "I will mourn for Lirri. But we have a job to do, a role to play. If Lirri is watching over us two right now, what do you think she'd want us to be doing?"

Nara sniffed, and wiped away some of her tears, "Since when did you get so strong, Sascha?"

"I'm not," he admitted, "I'm just doing what I can right now. Then when I've done everything I can, I'll just curl into a ball and cry. You'll be welcome to join me."

Feeling numb, but knowing that Sascha was correct, she let him pull her to her feet, "Come on, let's get to HQ. Everyone there deserves to know."

Sascha forced a smile, "There is my tough little Togruta," he said, punching her lightly on the shoulder.

Nara didn't feel like a tough little anything at the moment, but she was going to try to act like a Jedi, act like she was above the day to day emotions of the people around her. It would be a front, a lie, but it would allow her to do something other than just sit here in the middle of the road and cry. "Let's go. You lead."

They arrived at the resistance headquarters together. Inside, there was a flurry of activity, with Arslan and Ovans obviously trying to prepare some sort of mission. Arslan spotted them first, "Sascha, Nara! So good to see you! I tried to raise you at Lirri's home but no one was answering."

Ovans rushed over to them, looking beyond worried, "We are in a little bit of a crisis at the moment. One of our attacks went wrong and Lirri…well, Lirri was left behind. We're preparing our rescue mission right now. I'm sure you'll want to lead."

Nara looked downward, a lump forming in her throat. How could she possibly tell these people what had happened to Lirri? She found herself glancing at the door in a sort of a strange 'fight-or-flight response. She was lucky that her partner had more composure than she did. Sascha spoke, his voice betraying some of his pent up emotion, "If you are looking to rescue Lirri, you can cancel the mission."

The Togruta glanced up to see the stunned look from Arslan and Ovans and every other Ubroran that had overheard Sascha. "I don't understand what you are saying, Master Jedi," said Arslan, a hint of dread in his voice.

"Lirri Boikana is no more." After Sascha had said those dreadful words, Nara searched for, grabbed Sascha's hand and squeezed. He squeezed right back.

Shock registered on Ovans and Arslan's fur lined faces. "I am not sure what you mean, Jedi. Sekac said that when he left Lirri, that she was alive," said Arslan.

Sascha braced himself, "She's dead, Arslan. Nara and I felt it in the Force."

Arslan sat down in the middle of the room, clearly stunned. All around them, the conversations that had been going on had died down. Now there was only silence in the headquarters. "You are sure?" asked Arslan, "Could she just merely be hurt? Sekac said that she was wounded."

She spoke up for the first time, "Lirri is dead, Arslan. We wouldn't say something this…dire if we weren't completely sure."

A few of the other Ubrorans in the room started crying. Arslan put his hands atop his head as he sat in the middle of the room, distress evident in his expression.

Ovans though, reacted much differently. He got right in Sascha's face, and started screaming at him, "It should have been you two that died! How convenient for the both of you that you just _happened_ to not be on the mission that got ambushed by those armored thugs. Was Lirri standing too much in your sun, Jedi?" Ovans threw a wild haymaker of a punch at Sascha, which he easily avoided.

"I'm sorry you think that way, but its not true," Sascha said evenly.

"I'll show you who is sorry!" yelled Ovans, launching another punch at Sascha. This time Sascha grabbed Ovans' arm, used it to take him to the ground, and restrained him. "Let me up," yelled Ovans.

Sascha spoke, his voice now starting to crack with emotion, "You think I don't mourn for Lirri? My heart feels like it's going to rip itself in half. Lirri was more than just an influential leader. She was a fellow child of the Force! She was my sister! Don't you dare tell me that I sacrificed Lirri because I would trade places with her in a heartbeat!" His voice became quieter, more insistent, "But I'm going to do what I know she would want us to do. I'm going to keep fighting. She sacrificed for us. I'm not going to let that sacrifice be in vain."

The quiet room absorbed that speech from Sascha without anyone making a sound. "I'm not going to let that sacrifice be in vain either," she added. It had felt to her like the next thing that was said into the silence would make or break the mood amongst the resistance fighters, so she was going to be the one that said something. It was what Lirri would have wanted.

Arslan shakily got to his feet, "Me neither."

Still being held down by Sascha, Ovans muttered, "Me either. Now let me up." Sascha helped Ovans back to his feet, and looked surprised when the Ubroran embraced him with a quick hug, "I'm sorry I said those things," said Ovans.

"It's fine. We all deal with grief in our own way," replied Sascha.

"Someone needs to go tell her family," said Arslan quietly.

Nara unintentionally bit her lip. She had always begged off from visiting the families of those who had lost their lives fighting for the resistance. Sascha had always been the Jedi that had went to help console the families, that was something that he could manage to do, given his emotional strength. Somehow, she wasn't sure that he'd be able to manage that same level of emotional stoicism that he had previously.

"Sascha and I will go," she said.

Sascha caught her eye and nodded approvingly, adding, "Arslan, you should probably come with us too. There should be at least one Ubroran."

Arslan nodded. Ovans scuffed some dirt off of his clothes, "I'll keep things together here." The Ubroran paused, "I'll also tell Sekac what happened. He'll be crushed, but it's better that he hear it from one of us."

"I appreciate that, Ovans," said Sascha, complimenting the being that just half a minute ago was screaming in his face.

Arslan walked over to her and Sascha, "We should go now, before her family finds out from another source. We owe her family at least that much."

"Let's go then," she said.

It was a very quiet walk through the streets of Bontha for her, Arslan and Sascha. She tried not to think about what they were doing, how they were going to bring heartbreak to an entire family. Every time she wanted to stop, to make some excuse not to do this, she found confidence in both Sascha and Arslan. Sascha's shoulders were tense, and Nara could tell that he was going to hold on to his emotions just long enough to have this conversation with the Boikana's before breaking down. Arslan...well, he had clearly been

"Let me take the lead," Sascha said quietly but confidently. "If Murgo is there, we treat him like a father, not like an enemy, understood?"

Arslan looked like he might object, but he swallowed the objection when they rounded the corner and saw the Boikana home. It was a home pretty much like any other in Bontha, except maybe a little larger. The lights were on, meaning that her secret wish that Lirri's family wouldn't be home was unlikely.

Sascha walked up to the front entrance and rang the chime. Nara legs felt uncharacteristically weak, and her fight-or-flight reflex was telling her to run. She controlled that sensation, but it almost failed her when Parv, Lirri's brother, answered the door. "Can I help you?" he said, clearly wary.

"May we come in?" said Sascha.

"Lirri isn't here," said Parv, confused.

"We need to talk to you, and if your mother or father are home, then we would like to speak to everyone."

Parv froze, "This is about Lirri isn't it?"

Arslan walked forward, "Yes, now we'd prefer to tell this to everyone at once, not everyone individually. Now, can we get inside?"

Parv didn't move, "It's about Lirri, but Lirri isn't here. Why don't you just tell me why you came?"

Sascha took a deep breath and was about to respond when an older Ubroran came to the doorway. Seeing that it wasn't Murgo, Nara could only come to one conclusion, that this was Lirri's mother. "What is going on out here?" asked the Ubroran.

"These people are with the resistance," said Parv, taking the arm of his mother.

"We have something we'd like to talk to you about," said Sascha gently.

"Then come inside, please," said the Ubroran.

The small group headed inside the house, which she was already familiar with. Lirri's mother waved at the dinner table, indicating that everyone could sit, but she, Sascha and Arslan stayed standing. "My name is Sena, by the way," said the older Ubroran.

"I'm Sascha, and this is Nara and Arlsan," replied her friend.

"What brings you to our house today?"

Sascha closed his eyes for a short second before speaking, "I'm afraid that I have some bad news to deliver. Lirri…passed away today, leading resistance..."

Sascha was interrupted by a bone-chilling wail from Sena, who collapsed to the ground like she didn't have any bones. Parv's face showed his distress, but he held on to his mother and tried to comfort her as much as he could.

"I'm so sorry," said Sascha, his voice breaking, "I didn't know Lirri for very long, but I was proud to call her a friend of mine."

"She was very special," she added, her heart broken in half, watching Sena and Parv's world come crashing down on them.

The house was silent except for the sobs of the two Boikanas. Into the grief, spoke Sascha his voice calm, considered, but still emotional, "If there is anything we can do for your family, please do not hesitate to ask."

Parv managed to break off his crying fit for a moment to look up at all three of them, "Thank you. As you can…" the Ubroran wiped his face, "…understand, we would like to grieve alone."

Nara reached out and put a soft hand on Sascha shoulder. He nodded to her in appreciation of that gesture, and all three of them turned to leave.

Which was exactly when Murgo Boikana walked in.

"What is going on here!" yelled Murgo.

Nara froze.

Sascha, fortunately, did not. He bowed his head respectfully to the new entrant, "I'm sorry Mayor Boikana, but I felt it necessary to deliver some bad news in person."

It didn't take long for Murgo to process what those words meant and who was missing from this scene. "Where is Lirri? Where is my daughter!"

Sascha visibly floundered as Murgo advanced on him, so Arslan did what she should have done and stepped between the two. Arslan held out his arm to stop Murgo, "Sir, Lirri…was killed in action today…"

"What!" yelled Murgo, brushing Arslan aside to stand directly in front of Sascha, "This is some sort of ploy, isn't it? Something you convinced my daughter to do for your resistance to gain sympathy?"

Sascha swallowed hard, and a few tears appeared on his face, "I only wish that were the case."

Murgo's head snapped around, taking in the expression of his family and the obviously emotional intruders. Realization dawned in his eyes all at once. Murgo raced to his family to comfort them.

Nara was crying. She hadn't realized thatshe had started crying, and she had only become aware of it when she felt something wet started dripping down on to her hands. Sascha was bravely holding back tears, Arslan looked stricken and emotional, but wasn't crying. Without any sort of signal, Arslan and Sascha came and wrapped their arms around her.

Eventually, everyone came together.

Friends and enemies.

Family and strangers.

Ubroran and alien.

They all grieved together, remembering who they had lost.

And how things would never be the same again.


	46. Chapter 46: Mothers, Part One

**Lord Darth Yoda -** Fair enough, I think that there was perhaps too much drama contained in one chapter.

 **Speechbubbleme** \- I love Nara too. She's a fun character to write, and we'll get to see more of her and her backstory (and boy is it tragic!)

A/N - Posting quickly because I've got to run and I can't not publish a chapter on Wednesday!

Please enjoy the next chapter.

* * *

 **Chapter 46: Mothers, Part One  
**

Nara and Sascha walked back to Lirri's house in a daze. To be honest, Nara wasn't really walking, she was merely putting one foot in front of the other, because that was what Togruta did, and she feared if she stopped walking she'd fall into a morass of emotion so strong that it would consume her and she would never escape.

Arslan had given them the keys to Lirri's house, emotionally telling them that it was theirs now. She hadn't known how to respond to that. She simply didn't have the life experience to know what to say to that. She didn't know if she'd been polite or rude to Arslan, she just felt…numb.

As she and Sascha walked back to Lirri's Nara half wished that they'd stumble on to a droid patrol, just so that they could do something…anything but dwell on what had just happened. Unfortunately, tonight, they would not be so lucky.

She and Sascha quietly opened the front door to Lirri's house. Despite the fact that it had been bustling with people hours earlier, it was now empty. No one seemingly wanted to be in the house of a dead woman tonight. No one except two foreigners who had nowhere else to go. The two Jedi wandered around the house aimlessly, not saying a word to the other, each alone with their own thoughts.

Sascha seemed crushed, his bravado from earlier was gone, leaving behind a husk of a human, whose overly colourful clothes seemed vastly out of place. Somehow, they seemed too big on him now. It was like the dire circumstances had shrunk him. She wanted to go to him and just…hold him and have him hold her, but he seemed unusually closed off as he sat at the kitchen table, staring downward, his mind clearly far away. The young Jedi that was so carefree with his emotions was gone. She missed that person already.

She…she was still trying to comprehend what had happened. Lirri had been the best fighter out of all the Ubrorans and had been an inspiration to so many. Now to think that she was gone…it seemed impossible. Lirri had been so bright, so alive, she had been one of the few Ubrorans that would stand up and challenge her, instead of automatically deferring to her. It meant that they had clashed at times, but she always respected the fiery Ubroran, who reminded her of well…herself.

If things had been looking bad before for the resistance, now things were beyond grim. With Lirri gone, it seemed likely that their already dwindling resistance force would dwindle further, meaning that she and Sascha would have to be used more often, which meant that they would be quickly worn down, which meant that the next person that she cared about who died would be Sascha…or her. It was only just a matter of time.

That thought was just too much to bear, she fell weakly to knees in the middle of the kitchen floor, banging her knees hard against the cool, hard, surface. She curled into a defensive ball and just cried. She cried because she didn't have any hope left. She cried because a good person had died, and it seemed like the universe and the Force didn't care. She cried because of the fact that she wasn't going to get off this planet, she wasn't ever going to be a Jedi Knight and get her Padawan braid cut off by Master Yoda, which is all she'd ever really wanted from this life.

She cried because she didn't know what else to do, and that scared her more than her own death could.

She cried for so long and so hard that she totally lost track of her surroundings. As her crying fit eased, she noticed that Sascha had quietly, protectively, curled his body around hers. Yet despite the obvious closeness that the gesture implied, he remained apart from her, not touching her at all. She laughed through her tears, it was such a perfect Sascha Whitestar moment, on one level the perfect friend, on another, a shy boy still afraid to touch her, lest he be accused of acting improperly. She shifted to face him, and he tried to force a quick smile. Sascha's eyes were wet with tears too, which made her feel a little better about her outpouring of emotion. "You okay, Nara?" he asked.

"No," she said, trying to resist further tears.

"Good, because I'm not okay either." They lay there for long minutes, just staring at each other, neither of them knowing what to do. There had been no protocol at the Jedi Temple…for any of this.

Finally, she couldn't take the silence, "Can we get up from lying on the ground at least? It's cold on the floor."

"Good idea." They rose, pushing off of each other to clamber slowly to their feet.

"Where do you want to go, Nara?" asked Sascha.

"My room, at least it feels…kinda normal there." He nodded and gestured that she should lead the way. They climbed the stairs to her room quietly, the quiet creaking of their feet was the only sound in the house, the silence felt so, so wrong, and so out of place.

Once in her room, she resisted climbing onto her bed because that would mean that Sascha would be forced to sit on the floor, so she settled for a middle ground, sitting on carpeted floor, but leaning her back against the frame of the bed. Her best friend quickly settled in across from her, sitting in his usual cross-legged position, "What do you want to do?" he asked, his soft brown eyes staring back at hers.

There was…something that she'd always wanted to tell him. She'd wanted to tell him this ever since the day that he had declared that he was her friend and that nothing she could do could push him away. She'd kept a deep secret hidden from him. It had made sense to conceal it the start, but now, with hope dwindling, she just wanted to tell him.

Aw, what the hell.

She leaned forward slightly, "Do you ever think about your mother?"

Sascha's eyes widened in surprise. He opened his mouth to respond but no words came out. He blinked a couple of times, than finally managed to say, "I'm sorry, what?"

"I know most Jedi don't. We pretend that we somehow just arrived in the Jedi Temple as a manifestation of the Force, but we were…we are… someone's child. I was just thinking about how unfair it is that Sena will never get to see Lirri grow up. Our mothers never had the chance either."

Sascha looked deeply emotional, clearly on the verge of tears again. He looked away and said, "I'm not sure I'm in the right frame of mind to talk about my parents, after what we just saw."

Nara reached out and patted his leg softly, "It's okay, I'll start. I wanted to tell my story anyway." She took a deep breath, using a Jedi breathing technique to calm herself. "Unlike most Jedi, I actually have memories of my parents. Quite a few actually. I can actually remember the moment when my mother gave me over to the Jedi."

Sascha winced sympathetically, "I can't imagine what that would be like."

"I could show you," she offered.

Her best friend recoiled visibly, "I think that's a memory that is best left private."

"Maybe I should phrase it another way. I want to show you this. I want you to understand why I am like I am. I might not get another chance to do so. Tomorrow, I might be too afraid to show you, but right now I have the courage to."

Obviously hesitant, Sascha nodded, "All right. If you want to do this, Nara."

She started preparations for meditation, dropping all of her mental shielding and allowing Sascha to join with her. She felt his touch in her mind, uncertain and wary, but still warm, friendly. She reached deep into her old memories and found a happy one first.

In this memory she was very little, just a tiny little Togruta youngling, probably no more than two years old. She was playing with a little stuffed Thimiar, a small, rodent-like creature native to Shilli that was the primary prey of Togruta like her. The toy ran on little motorized legs, so that it would go a short distance and wait for her to pounce on it. Nara knew that it was a tool for teaching young Togruta how to hunt as well as being a children's toy. She watched herself slowly approach the toy, and then, from distance, she launched herself at it, quickly grabbing it and pinning it to the ground. The little toy vibrated for a second and emitted a tiny cry. The little Togruta laughed in a childish timbre.

She then let the Thimiar toy up and it obligingly scrambled away from her…and right into the path of an incoming foot, which crushed the little toy. A wordless cry escaped her lips as she ran towards the toy. She picked up the Thimiar, her little hands held the toy and she inspected it, the legs were bent awkwardly and the 'fur' of the Thimiar had been rumpled in such a way it no longer looked real. The two-year-old Nara Nalto regarded the broken toy and did the only thing that children knew how to do when tragedy struck them. She cried.

Quickly, the tall figure that had accidentally crushed her toy picked her up and held her in her arms. Little Nara looked into the face of the Togruta that picked her up. She had deep blue eyes, purple skin and dark purple montrals with deep red markings. Her mother.

The similarity between her and her mother was unmistakable. Yes, her mother's lekku were a slightly lighter purple than hers and yes, her facial markings were slightly different, but the facial structure was almost exactly the same as hers. Her mom offered her some comforting words that were unintelligible in her memory, but they seemed to calm her down slightly. Then, still holding her in her arms, she began to pet her rear lekku. Nara cooed softly as her mother brushed her posterior lekku slowly. Comforted, her two-year-old self closed her eyes and relaxed. She could feel the love between her and her mother in the Force, as undeveloped as her talent had been at that point. At this point in her young life, all she knew was that her mother loved her unconditionally.

The memory ended, and she had always assumed that her two-year-old self had fallen asleep in the arms of her mom. That thought made her feel warm inside. Always had, always would.

Back in the mediation, warmth flooded in from Sascha, which she returned. He seemed to prod her questioningly, as if asking if that was the memory that she had wanted to share. She mentally shook her head and prepared herself to relive another memory, one far more unpleasant. She reached into her memory banks to bring out an event that had haunted her for years afterward.

She was older in this memory, maybe four years old, and the mood was tense and emotional. Though she had lived this memory a hundred times at least, she could never figure out exactly where exactly it was taking place. It didn't help that the memory of a four-year-old Togruta was hardly immaculate, and the place where they were was pretty generic looking. What mattered was that there were four Togruta in the nondescript room and along with a figure in a brown cloak.

One of the Togruta was her, obviously. The second was her mother, who looked tired and frail, and the impression that she had always gotten from her was that her mom was tired of running. The only thing that it made sense to have been running from had been the Jedi, which had always made Nara believe that her parents hadn't given her up particularly willingly. And considering she was older than most children that were taken to the Jedi Temple, it could have been true. It could have all been in her head though. The third Togruta was her father, an average sized and not particularly attractive Togruta with orange skin and brown and red montrals and lekku. Her father was angry, not that you could really tell from his expression, which was neutral, but his emotions in the Force were more than clear enough for her to read, even as a youngling.

The fourth Togruta was her sister. A few years older than her, her sister was everything Nara had always wanted to be, physically speaking, that is. Purple skinned like her and her mother, her sister's montals and lekku were a lovely shade of deep red with white markings. Topped off with radiantly intricate and perfectly balanced set of facial markings, her sister, while only maybe…seven or eight, showed all the hallmarks of being on the way to becoming a beautiful Togruta. While Nara knew that she was considered reasonably attractive by humans and other humanoids, she knew that in terms of her own species, which valued facial markings and strong, bright colouring on lekku, that she'd be considered rather homely. She had always been jealous of her sister, which seemed ridiculous, given that she had gotten to lead a life of adventure as a Jedi and her sister would have ended up probably living a rather boring existence, but…she was still jealous.

The fifth person in the room was silent, dressed in their brown travellers cloak, very similar to the ones that she had worn while going on missions. Obviously, the person was a Jedi, but the memory she was re-living offered her no more details, so she didn't know which Jedi it was. Beyond the fact that she knew that the Jedi was a humanoid, she could make out no distinguishing features, as the cloak concealed them. She was actually thankful that she didn't know who the Jedi was that had been with her on that day, because she irrationally hated that Jedi with the passion of ten thousand fiery suns.

Returning her focus to the memory, she saw her mother nudge her sister gently in the back, "Say goodbye to your sister, Lia."

Her sister stepped forward and embraced her. Nara returned the embrace, wrapping her tiny arms around her sister. Her sister broke the embrace and held her by her shoulders, "Write me when you get to the Temple. I want to know all the fun things you get to do."

"I will," she promised in her childish voice.

Nara's control of the meditation wobbled and almost collapsed. She hadn't kept her promise to her sister. Somehow, she had always forgotten this part, and a wound opened anew. She hadn't kept her promise and that seemed incalculably painful at the moment. Nara had forgotten her sister, but she doubted that her sister had forgotten her. She was a selfish, worthless…

With great effort, she clawed her focus back to the memory at hand. After breaking the embrace with her sister, her father bent down and picked her up with ease. She hugged her daddy tightly, as tightly as her youngling arms would allow her to. Her dad lifted her so that she was right in front of his big blue eyes, "Nara, be a good girl with the Jedi. Show them that you are the best. I…I am proud of you, my daughter. I will miss you every day," he said, trying hard to keep his composure.

"I love you, daddy," she squeaked in her childish voice. Her father brought her in close for a last hug, before passing her to her mother.

Her mother was nowhere near as stoic as her father had been, her lekku swayed in distress and Nara could feel her churning emotions in the Force. Nara knew that the bond with her mother was far, far stronger than the one that she had with her father. She latched on to her mother tightly for a long moment, and her mom had to peel her away from her. Her mother placed her down on the ground and then knelt to bring herself to Nara's eye level.

Her mom's bright blue eyes quavered with emotion, and she spoke words that Nara had recited to herself almost every day afterward. "Always remember that I love you with my whole heart, and I always will, no matter the distance between us. You are the light in my life. Now go be a light in the stars, my child." Her mom brushed a tear away from her eye, "Go with the Jedi, they will be your family now."

"But I don't want to go!" she protested, "I want to stay with Lia and you and daddy!"

Her mother forced a smile, "You are getting to go to the Jedi Temple. Do you remember that I showed you a picture of the Temple? Didn't it look wonderful? Didn't you say that you wanted to see it? They'll teach you to be a Jedi there. Don't you want to be a Jedi, Nara?"

Uncertain, but with the promise of becoming a Jedi and going in a spaceship to Coruscant, something that would have tempted every four year old in the entire galaxy, she turned from her family and walked towards the Jedi.

She reached the Jedi's side and tentatively held out a hand to the Jedi. The nameless, faceless Jedi took her hand and started walking her away from her family.

She had just taken a few steps away when a pang of unbearable sadness came through the Force from her mother, shattering the idyllic moment they had just shared. Shaken by the sheer strength of the emotion, she fell to her knees and sobbed deeply. Now she knew that her mom didn't want to give her away. She knew that the previous words had been a lie, a facade.

Nara wanted to stay with her family, she wanted to stay with her family more than she wanted to be a Jedi. She released the hand of the Jedi, and turned to race back to her mother. Her mother, extended her arms towards her, but did not move towards her, nor did she call her name. She only cried.

The Jedi quickly turned and picked her up. She tried to resist, but the Jedi was strong. So she clambered onto the Jedi's shoulder and looked back towards her mother, who was slowly getting smaller in the distance. "Mommyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!" she shrieked, stretching her little arms back towards her.

She felt the Jedi trying to calm her down, but she would not be calm, her mother was being taken away from her! She squirmed and tried to escape the clutches of her abductor. She lashed out with everything available to her, including her nascent Force talents. She kicked and punched the Jedi, and hit him or her with everything in her power, but it was not enough to disrupt the sombre Jedi Knight. The faceless Jedi carried her around the corner, despite her protests, her tears, her fists pounding the Jedi's shoulder.

Nara Nalto was carried her away from her family, a family she would never see again. The last thing she felt was a deep sense of loss, a loss of a family that loved her unconditionally, who loved her for just being Nara Nalto.


	47. Chapter 47: Mothers, Part Two

**Lord Darth Yoda -** Nara's kind of remembering wrong - remember she's like 5 or something, she's not remembering everything perfectly (and she doesn't understand the context of what is going on).

A/N - Really wanted to spend all day writing today, but I have a massive headache - makes things hard to write! (And no its not from New Year's Eve celebrations...just sick). Anyway, we are catching up to where I am in the story so I have to get writing!

Anyways, Happy New Year and please enjoy the next chapter.

* * *

 **Chapter 47: Mothers, Part Two**

The memory ended and the two Padawans both returned to full awareness of themselves. She watched as Sascha brushed a tear away from his eye, "That was…the saddest thing I've ever seen, ever felt. I...just…excuse me for a moment." He broke down, crying into the sleeve of his robe. Despite the pain that remembering her mother…remembering that moment caused her, she felt better after sharing the memory with someone important to her. She gently patted Sascha's shoulder as he regained his composure.

He wiped away tears from his eyes, which were now raw and very red, "Sorry…but you know me, Nara…I'm a jumbled ball of emotions at the best of times."

"It's okay, it's one of the things I like about you."

"Thanks…I think."

"Can I…Can I ask you to do what my mom did to me in the first memory? Pet my back lekku? It's something that…calms me down and makes me feel at peace. I could…use that feeling of peace right now."

Sascha blushed, "I'm not sure it would be appropriate to…touch your lekku."

She rolled her eyes, "Sascha, for the love of the Force, I'm GIVING YOU PERMISSION. Besides, it's not really a sexual thing, I wouldn't ask you to do anything like that, because I know you'd probably spontaneously combust if you did. Just do this for me. Let me feel at peace."

"I'm not your mother, Nara," Sascha warned.

"I know that. You are Sascha Whitestar, my best friend."

Not waiting for him to raise another objection, she turned so that her back was to him and shifted her shoulders so that her back lekku faced him. Slowly, hesitantly, he placed his hand on her posterior lekku. She tensed slightly, reacting to the touch. Her lekku were sensitive to touch, but as she had said, not really connected to…pleasure in that sense, still it wasn't exactly a body part that got touched very often. She supposed the human equivalent of what they were doing would be like getting your hair brushed. Still, it was nice to have a boy touch her like that, even if that boy happened to be Sascha Whitestar, the shyest, most proper Jedi boy in the galaxy.

Sascha started moving his hand up and down her lekku, rubbing it softly. She closed her eyes and relaxed. Her breathing slowed and a low moan escaped her lips. After he got a feel for her lekku, he started petting it harder. _That_ relaxed her even further. Then he found the rhythm of how her mom used to pet her lekku.

Suddenly she was two years old again and in the arms of her mother. She was transported to Shilli, back to her house, where everything was simple, and perfect. She didn't know about the Force yet. She didn't have anything that caused her pain, and she most certainly had never heard of war or a planet called Ubrora. In the arms of her mother, there was peace. She let her mind drift along at peace, letting go of all her worries.

Long minutes later when her consciousness fully returned to her, she found that she had curled herself tightly against Sascha, who was looking down at her with barely concealed amusement. She sat up with a jolt, knowing that her head-tails were probably bright with embarrassment, "Uh, what happened?"

Sascha laughed lightly, "As soon as I started brushing your lekku like your mom used to…you basically just fell into me. I kept brushing your lekku for a bit and let you curl up against me. You kind of…went away, it's like the lights were on but no one was home."

She scooted a safe distance away from her friend and back against the frame of her bed, "Sorry if I scared you…that's never happened to me before."

Sascha waved away her apology, "It wasn't scary it was…nice to be able to give you that sense of calm. I almost wanted to keep petting your lekku, but my arm got tired," he joked. He paused, "I understand now why you wanted me to do that for you. I could feel the purity of the calm you were able to tap into."

"Thanks for doing it."

"I would say anytime…buuuut, I think if I were to do that in front of Master Brynar she'd never let us be alone together again."

"I don't think we should make a habit out of it either," she said honestly, feeling slightly embarrassed that she had let her defences down so completely.

"Do you want to talk about those memories, Nara?" prodded Sascha gently.

"Yeah." She relaxed her legs and let them slide out in front of her, "so as you might expect, being taken away from my parents and actually remembering it messed me up pretty good. I spent a long time in therapy when I was a youngling at the Temple. I would seem to recover, then there would be something else that set me off, like losing in a game or having someone make a joke at my expense. Then I'd end up in therapy again."

"I've been in therapy," said Sascha, "It's a difficult experience."

She nodded, "I don't remember many specifics anymore, but I remember this one nightmare that I kept having, about me fighting that Jedi in the brown cloak that you saw that took me away from my family. I could never see his or her face, but the situation was always the same, the Jedi in the brown cloak takes me away from my family, and I try to stop him. I never could, and I guess that's the nightmare part of it. It doesn't matter if I used the Force, if I was a fully-fledged Padawan… nothing seemed to matter. I couldn't beat him or her, they were implacable."

"That's...I don't even know what to say Nara. It sounds like a terrible thing to have had to go through. But maybe that is what made you so easily able to help me deal with my problem. Maybe that's why we were paired together, because you could empathize to so extent with what I was going through."

That thought had never occurred to Nara Nalto, but thinking it through, it made a certain amount of sense. "You think that there was some big plan to have us end up together," she said. Nara put her hands on hips in a decidedly exaggerated gesture, "Is this your way of saying that we were meant to be together Sascha Whitestar?"

Sascha laughed, a genuine, surprised laugh, the first one she could remember him uttering since…well, since things had gone to hell today. "Well," he drawled, "We do happen to know many Jedi Masters, and some of them can see the future, it seems possible that they put us together for a reason. That reason being…we complement each other."

She tried to force a smile but failed utterly, "I wonder if maybe the Masters should have done that earlier, so that I wouldn't have been such a lonely youngling." Sascha cocked his head in confusion and she sighed, reliving her unhappy days at the Jedi Temple as a young girl. "I was never close with my clan, the way you are with yours. The other younglings at the Temple, because they barely remember their parents at all could easily adopt a new family in their clan. But I knew that I had a family that cared about me, loved me and that didn't want to see me go. That made me different from everyone else. I also knew that if my family could be taken away from me, then my friends could be too. So…why make friends? Heck, Jedi even warn against attachments…I took it a bit too literally though."

She smiled shakily at him, "I think my clanmates tried to make friends with me, and I didn't hate them or anything, but I just stayed aloof, I kept everyone at a distance. Eventually they stopped trying to get through to me." She cast her eyes downward, feeling rather silly. She could remember all the conversations that she'd had with different Jedi Masters about the importance of having relationships, friendships, but they had never been able to make her see the point. She had only been able to focus on what she thought she knew, that everyone who cared about her would eventually be taken away from her. Stoicism had come to her at an early age. The only person who made her see how valuable friendship could be had been Sascha.

"I figured that because I was taken away from my family, I owed them to be the best Jedi I could be. I had to devote myself totally and utterly to being a Jedi that my family could be proud of, so that they could say that they lost a child, but the galaxy gained a hero. So I studied hard, looked up obscure Force techniques in my spare time and tried to make myself into the best Jedi that I could be. But there was never time for friends. Or for happiness."

"Until you met me at the tournament," Sascha said, smiling shyly, "And we became friends."

"Well, I did know who you were before the tournament."

Sascha recoiled, surprised, "Really? I barely knew who you were. I only knew your reputation."

Nara let her voice drip with sarcasm, "More than anything, I wanted to be a Padawan, it was the only thing that I ever wanted. Did you really think I wouldn't put in the time to research my opponents, my competition? It's not like I had friends to distract me."

Her friend nervously tugged at his collar, "I, uh…thought that you wouldn't bother with someone that you were obviously more talented than."

"I had detailed notes on everyone in the tournament. I didn't think very much of you," she said honestly, feeling her lekku heat up, flaring brighter in embarrassment again. Her notes on Sascha had been pretty blunt and damning. She remembered wondering why he had even been allowed in the tournament as he clearly had no hope of becoming a Jedi Knight. It was kind of funny that, years later, he would be her closest friend.

Sascha took the insult amiably, "To be fair, I was terrible at fighting back then. Still am, really."

She smiled, "I remember starting the second round of the tournament where I faced you, I was already looking forward to the next round. I underestimated you terribly. You were this nondescript looking human who had a very below average talent in the Force that was clearly not a particularly good fighter, and yet here you were just standing implacably in my way, refusing to lose. I threw everything I had at you, and it almost wasn't enough. It was perhaps the only lesson that I ever could have received that would have made me open my eyes and see that I was going about things all wrong, and that while you were less talented than I was, you were actually the better _Jedi_. I simply knew how to use the Force to accomplish tasks. I had been going about everything all wrong."

She got choked up for a second, "And when I needed someone to be a friend …when I was finally ready to accept a friend, you were there, and I thank the Force for that every day. Without you, I would have been lost."

"I'm happy to be your friend, Nara. And I always will be," said Sascha solemnly, from behind his deep brown eyes.

They smiled at each other for a second, before she decided to turn the conversation in another direction. "So," she said, slapping her leg, and trying to force some positivity into her voice, "Considering I just shared my life story, I figure I might as well return the favour. Do you know anything about your parents?"

"I…do actually." Sascha took a deep breath, "My parents…are actually best-selling authors."

Despite herself, despite what had transpired today, Nara laughed so hard that she forgot all about where she was. In that moment of laughter it was just her and Sascha in her room at the Jedi Temple or in the cafeteria just sitting and swapping stories. For that moment everything was as it should have been. She snapped back to the present and grinned at her friend, "Good joke, my friend."

Sascha smiled genially, "It's true actually. Here, I'll show you."

Sascha removed his datapad from his belt and started scrolling through it. "It's okay Sascha, I believe you. You don't need to show me."

"I think I do."

Curious, she wasn't exactly going to stop her friend. "I mean, have you read the book that your parents wrote?" she asked.

Her best friend paused in the middle of his motion, and shook his head, "I could never get past the cover page, actually. I gave the book to Tyra once, and she couldn't finish it either. She said whenever she started reading it, she'd end up in tears five minutes later…and Tyra never cries." Finally, he finished scrolling on his datapad and handed it to her.

Nara was intrigued that any book could reduce Tyra Harker to tears. That girl had the mental strength of a Jedi Master. Nara turned her attention to the screen and scrolled downward, finding the title of the book was, 'My son, the Jedi. By Donah and Robry Whitestar.'

Reading the title made a lump form in her throat and then scrolling further down she saw why Sascha couldn't get past the cover page. The picture on the cover showed a family of three humans, a mother, a father and a baby in swaddling clothes. It didn't exactly take a genius to realize that this was Sascha's family, and that the baby was Sascha himself.

His mother, Donah, was petite and somewhat plain, but her smile lit up her face with genuine happiness, and her eyes were as deep and caring as Sascha's own. The father, Robry, wasn't very tall either, but seemed rather athletic, his mustachioed face was turned towards his wife and son, a look of contentment and pride on his face. When Nara looked up at Sascha, she could see that he had grown up to be a physical reflection of both of his parents, possessing the kind, empathetic eyes of his mother and the athleticism of his father.

The son that their family never got to have.

It took a couple of tries, but Nara managed to get words past the lump in her throat, "Do you know what the book is about?" she asked.

"You could have just read the synopsis," Sascha said, clearly trying and failing to be lighthearted.

Obviously this was a touchy subject for him. Nara decided that she would tread carefully, "You know what I meant, Sascha."

Sascha forced a tense shrug, "As I said, I've never read it, but from what I understand it's something of a diary of the two years that my parents had me, before the Jedi came and took me to the Temple. I can't bring myself to read it, though I've always wondered about what it said. I'm mostly confident that my parents were okay with giving me up, because this book is part of the reading list that the Jedi Order gives to parents of children that are going to be taken to the Temple. But…I just can't deal with it. It's too emotionally charged."

"I think it would be an emotional journey to read the book," she said sympathetically. A thought occurred to her, "Would you mind if I read it?"

Sascha nodded gravely, "I'd be honored if you would read it, Nara."

"Do you want me to tell you about the book? About your parents?"

He shrugged, "Nara, you know me pretty well by this point. If there is something that you think I'd like to know, you can certainly tell me, but you aren't obligated to. There is something I want you to do for me though."

"I'll do anything for you, my friend."

"Anything?" he said, raising his eyebrows, obviously trying to make a rather lame joke.

She reached out and shoved him playfully, "Okay, not _anything_."

Sascha brushed his short brown hair in a nervous motion, and spoke in a taut, emotional voice, "If…I don't make it, I want you to find a way to get a message to my parents. Tell them that I was loved. That I led a good life. Tell them that their little sacrifice meant something. Tell them about me. Who I was. Who I tried to be."

Those words landed heavily on her heart, how could they not after all that had happened over the past few hours? "I…promise that I will, Sascha. And I ask that you do the same for me."

"I will Nara. I'll try to let your parents know how wonderful you were."

"But let's hope neither of us has to do that."

"I can't imagine a worse conversation to have."

She nodded, but privately she thought that the worst part would be having to live the rest of her life without the friendship of her first, and best friend. Soberly, Nara turned her thoughts towards more pressing matters, like sleep, given that she thought she could see the yellow sun of Ubrora starting to rise outside of her window indicating the dawn of another day. "I think we should leave our conversation on that note."

"Thanks for sharing those memories with me, Nara."

"If anyone deserved to know the real story behind my past, it's you Sascha."

"And if there was anyone I wanted to have read my parents book, it's you."

They embraced briefly, allowing warmth to spread between each other physically as well as emotionally. When they broke apart, she felt a wave of fatigue wash over her. She spared a look down at her chrono, "It's pretty early in the morning, and we should probably get to bed. Jedi still do need to sleep."

"Could I stay in this room tonight?" asked Sascha cautiously, "I don't want to be alone….tonight…"

"Sascha, it's okay, I understand. You could sleep in my bed," she offered, "it's big enough for two."

Sascha's face reddened, "I don't think I could, Nara. I'll sleep on the floor though, so we can be close. Just let me go get my pillow and blanket"

Sascha left to get his things, and Nara let out a sigh as soon as he was gone. She wished that Sascha had accepted her offer, not because they would have done anything physical while sharing her bed, but because it would have been nice to sleep beside and cuddle with a boy for once in her life. As far as she could tell, she might only get this one chance. But she would content herself with having his presence by her bedside and the knowledge that their friendship was stronger than ever. As a consolation prize, it wasn't half bad, she thought with a tiny smile.


	48. Chapter 48: Grieving

**Lord Darth Yoda -** I really do see where you are coming from with the criticism, and its appreciated. I think that I wanted so desperately to write something where Sascha and Nara are just friends that if I kept repeating it, than it would be true. I should have just trusted that the readers 'got it' instead of stressing over and over again that Sascha and Nara aren't interested. A mistake, looking back at it. Actually you don't sound mean at all when you point out things you don't like - its a nice thing to have in a consistent reviewer. As for the positives, I do think exploring where Jedi come from is something that goes impossibly unexplored. I mean are no Jedi curious about their families? We'll see some of Sascha's parent's book in the little pre-chapter quote, and I do think we'll see them in the story, albeit briefly.

 **Speechbubbleme -** I admit that Sascha and Nara's relationship draws from my own friendships. In high school I had a bunch of male friends, but the person I confided in was a girl that was smart and tenacious but also deeply troubled (my worries were really stupid compared to hers). So I do know how to write a male-female friendship...because I was in one.

 **Revanchanism FTW** \- Thanks for the review, love the creative name! It's a very good point that you make and I actually changed this chapter slightly to reflect on it. Thanks for the feedback - it sometimes spurs me to make changes for the better

A/N - I'm still sick somehow...but the Star Wars Rebels Season 3 mid-season trailer made me feel a bit better #hype

Anyways please enjoy the next chapter.

* * *

 **Chapter 48: Grieving  
**

" _I think it caught both of us by surprise. We'd discussed what we would do if our child was discovered to have a learning disability, or a birth defect, or any of a thousand incredibly rare scenarios. Never once did we discuss what we would do if our son was discovered to be a potential Jedi. It was simultaneously the best and worst news possible, because we knew that our child would be destined for a life that was beyond any of our wildest dreams. Yet, we also knew that we would be able to share in little of that."_

" _What do you do with a child that you know will only be yours for a few years? You love him of course, with everything you have."_

-Excerpt from 'My Son, the Jedi' by Donah and Robry Whitestar

* * *

As evening set on Ubrora, Arslan Ivalice watched the crowd in the main square gradually grow larger and larger with some apprehension.

He knew that there was some percentage of the crowd that were just here to see the 'spectacle' of a public funeral, but most were here to pay tribute to a fallen daughter of Bontha. And some saw it as a passive protest against the droid army and the Mandalorians that were increasingly aggressive in their means of putting down the resistance forces. Arslan would take all of them, because this night was not his, no, he had a role to plan, but this night belonged to Lirri Boikana. Her strength. Her courage. Her spirit. Her life.

It broke his heart beyond words to know that Lirri was resting lifelessly in a closed casket on a raised brier just a short distance from him. Arslan had developed something of a tiny crush on Lirri, even though she was massively out of his league looks wise, and he was a fair bit older than Lirri had been. He had never said anything about it, because it hadn't been the time, or place to discuss such emotions. He doubted that Lirri had seen him as anything more than a competent organizer, but it had given Arslan a post-war fantasy to strive for.

Arslan shook his head and fought back tears. It was just such a massive shame, everything that had happened. But he knew that Lirri would want him to carry on. So he would, because while he had never sought the spotlight, he knew that sometimes, common men like him were asked to do things of great importance.

The crowd continued to amass in the square, it now looked like a the crowd for tonight would be large indeed. A large crowd to celebrate the life of a fallen hero. Arslan knew that he was taking a massive risk in being here, there was a distinct chance that some Mandalorian would show up with a bunch of droids and start arresting people. Or worse. Yet it was a calculated gamble, for if their enemy did attempt something like that, the average citizen may, finally see that if they do nothing that their freedoms will be taken from them.

Sekac ambled over beside him, looking as mournful as he had when he brought back the news of the ambush to the resistance headquarters. The normally quiet former hunter had been even quieter than usual since he learned of Lirri's death, and every attempt that Arslan had made to converse with him had been met with stony, resilient, silence. Everyone grieved in their own way, Arslan knew, but it didn't make it any easier to watch people that he had come to care about so obviously in distress. Maybe Sekac would come back around after the funeral.

Arslan was somewhat amazed that he and the people around him could be moved to feel such a loss anymore, after everyone had gotten used to dealing with death and loss. But that was the power of a larger than life figure passing away and for better or for worse, Lirri was larger than life.

Sekac noticed Arslan looking at him, but said nothing, he simply sauntered away slowly, obviously trapped in his own thoughts, his own grief.

A few moments later, Arslan tapped on his comlink, it looked like the crowd wasn't growing any bigger, so it was time to start the proceedings, "Dirkal, lower the lights." After a couple of seconds of hesitation, the lights that had been lighting Lirri's elevated briar dimmed. Arslan waited for the crowd to be silent, collected himself and then marched solemnly to the small speaking platform that had been erected for the occasion.

As he looked out over the crowd, he quelled his nerves, public speaking was something he'd never been fond of. Interviewing was fine, because that was usually a private setting, this was anything but a private setting.

"Good evening," he began, his voice cracking. That was not the start he had wanted.

Arslan psyched himself up again and began anew, "Good evening." Now his tone was strong, vaguely confident. Good enough. "As you know, we are here today celebrating the life of Lirri Boikana, daughter of Murgo and Sena Boikana, brother of Parv Boikana."

He paused respectfully for a moment, "The position of speaker at a public funeral like this is traditionally given to the person with whom the deceased created their greatest achievement. It humbles me beyond words to think that Lirri had chosen me to speak for her. I, personally, don't consider myself to be worthy of such an honor, but as a representative of the resistance, I will do my best."

"I only knew Lirri Boikana for a short amount of time, so I will leave the stories of Lirri's formative years to those who can better speak of them. So I will start her story with her time in the resistance." Arslan paused again, this time for dramatic effect.

"The first time I saw Lirri Boikana, she was holding a blaster rifle. I suppose that is only fitting," he said wistfully. "The two young Jedi, Sascha and Nara, were recruiting for the resistance and they had set up an impromptu firing range. Everyone else was a horrible shot. But not Lirri. No she stepped up and fired that thing like it had been _made_ for her, like it was part of her arm." Arslan smiled ruefully, "I suppose at that moment, I realized how special she was."

"Her acts of heroism were so numerous that they almost became pedestrian. They ranged from simple acts, to something you would see in a holomovie. I could sit here and regale you of these stories until the sun comes up and we would all be better for it, but I'll tell just one story that was emblematic of Lirri, to give you a picture of who she was, and perhaps more importantly show you who we lost."

"I don't exactly remember when, but at some point a few weeks ago, the two young Jedi, Sascha and Nara, pulled Lirri aside and told her that she possessed the same talent that they had, that she could have become a Jedi. Obviously, she had none of their training, but she was determined to learn the basics."

"Every night, before she would go home for the night, she would go over the materials that the Jedi had given them. I glanced at them briefly, they were just histories and the very basics of how to use what the Jedi called the Force. Despite the fact that we were fighting for our lives every single day and getting very, very little rest, Lirri would still dedicate hours to learning all that she could. Eventually she started practicing."

Arslan shook his head ruefully, "It looked ridiculous. Lirri would sit on the floor and try to do the things that she had just seen the Jedi do earlier today. Things like sensing incoming projectiles, sensing emotions or moving objects with the Force. Lirri and I decided that the easiest way to test her progress would be to have me blindfold her, then lob a ball at her, and see if she could swat it away, much like the Jedi do with their lightsabers." He chuckled slightly, "It is good that the ball I lobbed at her was soft, because she missed ninety nine percent of the time. At least at first."

"I think at first Lirri was upset at herself for not learning how to do this impossible task after practicing for a couple of hours. That was why she never got better at doing it at first, I think." Arslan paused for dramatic effect, "Then after one very hard day, Lirri and I went back to my apartment, and she did _not_ want to practice, she said that she was tired and that practicing was the last thing she wanted to do. So, I decided that I would whip the ball at Lirri's back without warning. Lirri turned slightly and caught the ball. It was amazing. But it could have been a fluke, so we tried again."

"I can't lie to all of you and say that she was able to parry everything I threw at her. But she was able to block the ball half the time I threw it at her. I knew at that moment that we had something really special. We had Ubrora's first Jedi."

Arslan got emotional, but was able to keep his voice clear, "We only got a glimpse of what Lirri could have become. Maybe she burned so brightly that it was inevitable that she would eventually burn out. Some say that the four Jedi have been sent here in our our of need because of some sort of divine providence. I say that the fate of Ubrora lies where it always has...with Ubrorans! Let us be like Lirri and look within ourselves to find our true potential!"

Arslan took a moment to calm himself down, and wait for the polite applause to end, "Many will say that I should not make this political. And perhaps they are right. But I knew Lirri Boikana, and I knew that she dreamed of a free Ubrora. It is my pledge that I will keep fighting for that future."

Arslan wiped away a tear, gently. "That is just one story about Lirri Boikana, and you will hear many more about her very soon. But if there was a reason that you thought that Lirri was special, you weren't wrong. She was."

* * *

Half a world away, Aurine Brynar and Tiplee had been watching the funeral of Lirri Boikana. After Arslan's speech, they had simply turned it off. It had been enough of an emotional roller-coaster for both Jedi Knights.

The war continued to take its toll on both her and Tiplee. Aurine had always viewed herself as someone who put herself on the front lines, so that others did not have to. But now, the tables had turned on her, and she was not liking it one bit. She didn't like the idea that she had to preserve herself for another time, and let others meet their enemy on the field of battle. Intellectually, she knew that she was doing the right thing, but the disconnect between theory and practice was eating at her.

"We should talk to the Padawans, while things are quiet in Bontha," said Tiplee.

Aurine nodded in mute agreement. She knew that Sascha had taken the news of Lirri's death hard. She also knew that Sascha and Nara had invested a lot into making Lirri into someone that could have managed the entire resistance, and now with that no longer an option, it would be up to the Padawans to once again be leaders. Unfortunately, she wasn't sure if they were up for it anymore, with them being physically and perhaps more importantly, emotionally drained.

Aurine and Tiplee slipped surreptitiously into a quiet room. Aurine closed the door behind them and then used her comlink to contact Sasch and Nara.

After a couple of rings, Sascha answered the call. "Hi Master," said the obviously fatigued voice of her apprentice.

Aurine waited for Nara to respond or offer a greeting, but the Togruta's silence spoke volumes. Eventually, Tiplee said, "Are you there, apprentice?"

"Yes, Master," replied Nara quietly.

Aurine and Tiplee shared a worried look. While Sascha seemed…subdued, Nara seemed like a shadow of her former self. Tiplee had mentioned that Nara had seemed to have been a bit more affected by Lirri's death than Sascha, which Aurine found surprising, but she was seeing, or hearing, the evidence of that right now.

"We were both very saddened to hear that Lirri Boikana died," she said, her tone as comforting as she could make it.

"You have our condolences," added Tiplee, "I know you were close with her."

Another long silence passed, and without the blinking light on Aurine's comlink indicating that the transmission was still ongoing, she might have thought that the call had been ended.

"Why did you call?" asked Sascha.

Aurine frowned, "We want to check up on you. How are things going?"

Yet another long pause, finally Sascha's voice came through, "What do you want me to say, Master? It's a disaster over here. The resistance is a shell of its former self and it was never all that strong to begin with. Nara and I are tired out of our minds and I've lost count of how many resistance members have died during the fighting. Lirri was supposed to hold it together, but now she's…gone"

"Stay strong, Padawans," said Tiplee, "You only need to hold out for a few more days. I hate being cryptic, but we are working on a solution to our problem."

Sascha and Nara both laughed, but it was not a laugh of amusement, it was a laugh of bittness, of resignation. "We aren't going to last a few days, Master Tiplee," said Sascha.

An icy claw reached out and grabbed at Aurine's heart, "You can do this, Padawans. Do not give up hope."

"Give us something to hope for then!" Sascha yelled. "I can make empty promises to our resistance fighters, but I was hoping that I might get some honesty from you. We need HELP, Master."

"Careful with your tone, Sascha," she warned.

Sascha released a long breath, "I'm sorry Master, I just…I don't know what I'm doing anymore. We are so out of the loop that we have no idea what is happening at your end. You can tell us to hope, but Nara and I need more than that to go on."

"Why are we even fighting?" asked Nara, her voice a whisper, "I don't want to fight anymore."

"It's okay, Nara," said Sascha softly, comforting, and Aurine imagined the two of them embracing lightly, "We can still do this, if we do this together."

"Together," said Nara, her voice slightly muffled.

Aurine grimaced, she had been sensing a deepening of the bond between Nara and Sascha for some time now and it seemed like only a matter of time before their relationship became something more than it should be. Tiplee hadn't seemed particularly concerned by the fact that the two Padawans had established a very strong bond, maintaining that Nara wasn't interested in Sascha, at least not in _that_ way. But with two young people pushed to the brink, it would only take one moment of weakness for things to push things into attachment. For all Aurine knew, it had already happened.

"Just a few more days," she promised, trying to gloss over her insecurity, "There are plans in motion that I can't speak to you about. But trust me when I say that it will all be over soon." One way or another, knew Aurine.

"Trust in the Force," chimed in Tiplee.

"The Force didn't help Lirri," Nara said pointedly.

"Perhaps, it was her path to sacrifice herself as she did," Tiplee replied.

Neither Padawan seemed soothed by that answer. Aurine didn't blame them. "Master…" said Nara, "I'm going to go lie down. I just…can't keep my eyes open anymore…so tired..." Nara's voice trailed off.

"May the Force be with you, Nara," said Tiplee.

Nara murmured something unintelligible. Sascha, graceful as ever, said, "Just one moment while I help Nara, I'll be back."

Aurine turned to face Tiplee, whose face was taut with emotion. The Rishati, once she noticed that she was looking at her, returned her expression to one of cautious impassivity, but it was sobering to see Tiplee lose control, however briefly.

"I'm back," said Sascha. "What else did you want to talk to me about?"

"We just called to check in," replied Aurine, "And to offer you condolences about the passing of Lirri Boikana. Do you want us to try to get some supplies to the Resistance? It sounds like you could use the help."

Sascha sighed, "I don't suppose you have a spare army you can lend us?"

"Unfortunately no," replied Tiplee, "But we could send the Ubroran Rangers to support you. They are Ubrora's elite commando unit. I've fought with them, they are excellent."

"We'll take any help we can get," Sascha said immediately.

Aurine eyed Tiplee warily, they had not agreed to undertake such a move, but she supposed that she saw the sense in sending the Ubroran Rangers to Bontha. "We'll get them moving before nightfall," she pledged. "Is there anything else?"

"I'm worried about Nara," Sascha said bluntly. "I get the sense that she's just barely holding on to her sanity...and I don't know what to do. We barely leave each other's side anymore. I think it's only our connection in the Force that sustains us."

Aurine and Tiplee shared a worried glance. "Perhaps you should keep her to non-combat roles," Tiplee suggested.

"In a perfect world, I could do that, Master Tiplee, but I need her too," he admitted. "I'm just about out of people here I can rely on, and Nara is still the best fighter in the resistance. These Mandalorians must know we are on the verge of being broken, I can't imagine they'll let up the pressure. I need Nara by my side."

"Do you think Nara is falling to the dark side?" asked Tiplee quietly.

Aurine was very surprised to hear Tiplee broach that question, but she supposed that the Rishati did have the strongest connection to Nara.

"No," said Sascha after a short pause, "She's just…going away, little by little. All these traumas she's experienced, watching people die, being in charge of people that have died…she's not handling it well. She's already had a couple of minor breakdowns that I've been able to pull her out of, but if something else goes wrong on her watch…she might just break. She's weak right now, Master Tiplee."

Tiplee stared downwards, obviously emotional, "You can be her strength, Sascha."

Sascha's voice broke, "I'm trying to be there for her, but I have a limit too, Master Tiplee."

Aurine spoke up, "Perhaps it may be best if you sent Nara back to us…"

"No!"

Stunned a bit by Sascha's quick and uncharacteristically rude rebuttal, Aurine stared at the comlink for a long moment.

"I apologize…Master," Sascha managed to say, "I just meant that if Nara goes, I don't know how long I can last alone."

The two Padawans have become far too attached to each other, realized Aurine. "Maybe I should ask how you are doing, Sascha?"

"I think…If I start thinking about me, I'll lose whatever is keeping me propped up. I don't know, maybe I'm having a mental breakdown too," he laughed bitterly.

Aurine wracked her mind, trying to think of how to respond to that. She came up empty.

"Just a few more days, Sascha," said Tiplee, "Just focus on that."

Grateful for the Rishati's intervention, she managed to find words to speak again, "You are doing brilliant work Sascha. Remember, the Force will always be your ally."

Aurine imagined Sascha bowing his head respectfully like he always did after receiving praise, "Thank you, Master. Listen, I should go to sleep as well, I need every wink of sleep that I can get."

"May the Force be with you, my Padawan," she said.

"Goodbye, Master." With a click, Sascha signed off.

Aurine closed her eyes, hoping that this had all been a bad dream, hoping this was just a really advanced test at the Jedi Temple, hoping that somehow she would just wake up.

She opened her eyes to see Tiplee peering at her in concern. She turned away to try to conceal the tears that she were coming, but her friend just gently turned her around. The Rishati pulled her into an embrace. Aurine resisted for a moment, and then just…lost herself, pouring out all her tears on Tiplee's shoulder. Tiplee held her silently, waiting until Aurine could find her composure again.

Aurine sniffed and pulled away, using her good hand to wipe away some tears, "I guess that was coming," she said.

"I do not think less of you for reacting that way," said Tiplee. "As Jedi we can control emotions, but that does not mean we have to bottle them up. It doesn't mean we _should_ bottle them up."

Aurine bowed deeply, respectfully, "Thank you, my friend," she said.

Tiplee clasped her shoulder, "I only ask that you will return the favour one day."

Aurine nodded. Truth be told, balling her eyes out for that quick moment had been good for her. She had been repressing too many emotions for too long. Now she felt oddly energized, ready to solve all the problems that were confronting them.

"It seems that our Padawans are struggling with their assignment," Tiplee said in a quiet tone. "Can we recall them back here?"

Aurine hesitated, "I mean we can, but it's a disaster if we do. The resistance in Bontha is barely holding on, and if it stops being a threat, all those droids that are currently patrolling in Bontha can be added to the droid army. Simply put, the impact that Sascha and Nara is having in the city is disproportionate to their actual threat. They just need to survive and keep the resistance a threat for a few more days."

Tiplee shook her head softly, "I don't like this. We are treating our Padawans like they are movable pieces on a dejarik board. These are our _apprentices_. We swore that we would do our best to protect them. Now we are using them as decoys! It doesn't seem right."

"It's not right. That's why Jedi make terrible Generals." Aurine slammed her good hand into her thigh, "I can't afford to have the morality of a Jedi Knight right now. We need to win this war, by whatever means necessary, because that's the only way anyone of us gets home."

The Rishati nodded slowly, "I suppose that winning is the only thing that matters." She turned away for a moment, "That is a horribly odd thing for a Jedi Knight to say."

"Maybe we should talk about how attached the two of them are obviously becoming," she said.

Tiplee's mouth twitched, "While I don't think their relationship is physical, I'll admit that they've become a bit too...dependent on each other for my liking."

"They are either platonically or non-platonically attached to each other, I think. It doesn't really matter which. This could turn out to be very bad for us, because if something bad happens to one of them, the remaining Padawan may be deeply affected...and not in a good way."

"I agree. But I don't see any alternative. Do you?"

She shook her head, "No. Is there anything else you think we can do?" Aurine asked.

Tiplee stared straight forward for a long moment. Then she turned to face her again, "Dream," said Tiplee. "And never doubt that there is always hope."


	49. Chapter 49: Lost

**Lord Darth Yoda -** So logical :p. I mean you are probably right to be worried about Nara, for all the reasons you just talked about, but come on, Sascha could be blown up by a tank at any moment...right...right? (Okay, _probably_ not).

A/N - Sometimes when I review this chapter, I think it's one of the best I've ever written. Sometimes I think its one of the worst and I should have taken it out. The truth is probably in the middle somewhere, but maybe let me know if I've lost my mind or not (Too late! :P)

Anyways please enjoy the next chapter.

* * *

 **Chapter 49: Lost**

 _Sometimes we thought a mistake was made. Our son couldn't be a Jedi! He was just like every other child, he cried and ate and didn't do much beyond that. There never seemed to be anything special about Sascha. Maybe that was the point. Maybe the Jedi don't take their Initiates as infants so that they can experience that last bit of normalcy, where they were exactly like every other being their age._

-Excerpt from 'My Son, the Jedi' by Donah and Robry Whitestar

* * *

"May the Force be with you, Nara."

Nara nodded curtly, acknowledging his remark and turned to her troops, half of the fourteen Ubroran Rangers that had joined them in Bontha this morning. The fresh, experienced troops were certainly a welcome sight for him and Nara. Unfortunately for them, the Ranger's experienced Lieutenant had been held back, having not recovered enough from a minor wound he had taken earlier. That meant, as ever, leadership fell to the Padawans.

"Okay, time to move out. Any questions before we go?"

"No, Commander."

The Togruta nodded, "Let's go. I lead, you follow."

Nara acknowledged her troops and then started off in the opposite direction in a light jog, her troops right behind her. Sascha watched her go, hoping that trepidation wasn't written all over his face. When he'd woken Nara up this morning, he'd had to actually go over to her and shove her shoulder to get her to stir. Even after getting her, up Nara seemed to have become...distant. Though she had opened up to him a couple of days ago, the strength that had allowed her to do that hadn't lasted very long.

Nara was going to break. It was just a matter of when she would do it, when everything was said and done or before that. For Nara's sake and his own, he hoped it was the former and not the latter.

He had toyed with the idea of keeping Nara back or keeping her with Arslan, but to do that he'd have to explain his reasoning to Nara, and he'd basically be forced to admit that he was worried about her mental state and that didn't seem like a productive conversation. So Sascha was rolling the dice by letting Nara go with half the Ubroran Rangers and go raiding. It was a sick, mind-numbing gamble. He'd wanted to lead the raid himself, but if he got in trouble, he didn't necessarily trust that Nara would make the best decisions anymore. So he had let Nara lead a solo mission. He just it didn't go horribly wrong like most missions were going these days.

Sascha headed back inside their temporary headquarters. It was hard not to notice how empty they were in comparison to a week ago. "Tell me what's happening Arslan," he said.

Arslan barely looked up from the screen which he was staring at, "They've just gotten under way. About four minutes until they come across their targeted patrol."

Ovans, who was pacing around behind Arslan commented, "I can't believe their patrols are getting so close to us. A week ago we could say that we conceivably controlled forty percent of the city. Now it's more like ten."

That was pretty indicative of the success that they'd been having. No longer could they simply show up, ambush a droid patrol and then leave, now it was show up, ambush a droid patrol and then fight a running engagement with a pair of Mandalorians for twenty minutes before managing to escape. The numbers of resistance fighters was now dwindling to an almost absurdly low number. Without the Ubroran Rangers reinforcing them, Sascha might have had to ask Arslan to take up a rifle again, just to have enough numbers.

Sascha saddled up to Arlsan and spoke quietly, as not to be overheard, "Have you had any success in finding where the kidnapped families are?"

Arslan visibly tensed for a moment, "No. But its going to be a trap when we do find them."

"I don't _care_ Arslan. Just find them."

Sascha had to walk away from Arslan to get his composure back. The fact that Coren Vox had stooped so low as to abduct the families of resistance fighters was infuriating. He didn't care that it was probably going to set up another trap from Coren Vox, he just couldn't bear the thought that someone completely innocent was being harmed because of his actions and if given the chance to make it right, he would.

"We have contact," said Arslan in a cool tone. "Nara's squad has encountered the droid patrol."

Sascha turned back around so he could watch the feed from Nara's camera that was on Arslan's display. The display showed Nara and her squad getting in position as a droid patrol walked obliviously by. Good news, so far. All Nara had to do was ambush the droids and get out before the Mandalorians reacted. They'd done it dozens of times by now.

"Come on Nara, what are you waiting for," he muttered. As far as he could tell, Nara was being far too careful in waiting for the exact perfect moment to strike. Their opposition was only eight droids, it was not as if they needed to be perfect. Finally, Nara jumped into action. Her part of the Ubroran Rangers opened fire first, and as they were doing so, Nara jumped into the fray, with what he felt was a fair bit less than her usual enthusiasm. By the time she got near the droids, only one of them was left and she easily cut that luckless droid in half.

Sascha shrugged. Sometimes it was just that easy.

"Okay, time to fall back," muttered Arslan.

On screen, Nara started jogging away from the impromptu battle. For a moment, it looked like they were going to get away. Then a burst of static came from the datapad and the picture faded for a moment. When the picture returned, Sascha got a close up view of the ground as something had apparently knocked Nara to the ground. In the Force, Sascha felt Nara's fear and that was enough to have him turn and head for the door.

"Sascha, where are you going?" asked Ovans.

"Nara's in trouble. I'm going to help." Sascha gestured to his half of the Ubroran Rangers, "Squad, with me!"

"Sascha, she's just going to retreat..." said Arslan.

He didn't let Arslan convince him not to go. He knew that Nara was in trouble and he was going to help. Simple as that. He strode out the door, feeling Nara's fear and desperation quite clearly in the Force. That meant there was no time to lose. He turned to his troops, "I'm going to go on ahead, follow me when you can." Upon receiving nods from his troops, he drew on the Force and sprinted in Nara's direction, trusting that his connection with Nara would allow him to follow his friend.

Sascha tried to keep his mind clear as he ran, but Nara's obvious fear kept him from doing so. He was lucky Nara wasn't far away, because the more time he had left alone with his thoughts, the worse it would be for him. He knew that he was getting too close to Nara, he shouldn't have been effected this much by her emotions. But at this point he felt responsible for her. And, deep down, he knew that if Nara got hurt or...worse, and he had done nothing to stop it, then he would never forgive himself.

Sascha rushed around a corner, knowing, and feeling that Nara was close. When he saw her, his heart caught in his throat for a split-second. Nara, her unlit lightsaber held listlessly, was shambling down the road, her brown Jedi overrobe almost torn completely off, showing most of her colourful inner robe. "Nara!" he shouted. The Togruta didn't appear to hear him, so he closed the distance between them swiftly, and as he did he could see little patches of blood on her robe. Blood that didn't appear to be hers. That…wasn't good.

Fearing what that might portend, and wondering why she wasn't responding to him, he grabbed a firm hold of her shoulders, "Hey Nara, what happened?" The Togruta paused in his grip, but didn't even seem to notice him. Truly, deeply, worried now, he said in a more urgent tone, "Nara, come on, talk to me."

After a long pause, she finally spoke, "Gone," she said faintly, "They are all gone. Everyone always leaves me…"

"Nara?"

The Togruta turned her blue eyes towards him, yet they were so lifeless and dull that he wouldn't have recognized them as hers if she hadn't been standing right in front of him. "Gone. All gone. Always Nara left alone."

"Nara, why are you talking in the third person? What happened to your squad?" he said, trying to interject some calm into his voice.

Nara glanced away from him, "Gone. No one left. Just Nara. Everyone always leaves me."

"Nara you aren't making sense." A deep sense of dread seemed to be descending on him, what in the Force was wrong with his friend? She had been relatively fine just a few minutes ago! He'd always thought Nara as such a strong presence, what was happening in front of him seemed impossible.

Nara then looked him dead in the eye and spoke in a distant, childish tone, "I'm going away now. Bye, Sascha."

"Nara? What do you mean you a going away now?" The Togruta offered no response, only staring straight ahead with lifeless blue eyes. "Nara? Nara! Don't do this to me," he said, his voice frantic. He shook Nara gently hoping to lull her out of…whatever this was. No reaction. He tried shaking her a little bit harder. No reaction. He then noticed that his squad had followed him and was watching the unfolding scene in apparent fascination.

One of his soldiers stepped forward, "What happened to Nara?"

He turned towards his men and forced what he thought was a confident expression onto his face. "Nara is…uh…fine. She just needs to rest for a while. I'll come back to HQ in a bit."

"But what did she say about her squad being gone?" asked another soldier, worry apparent on his face.

One crisis at a time, the young Padawan almost shouted. Instead, he continued to affix a mask of confidence on his face, "I'll try to find out what happened from Nara," he said earnestly.

Clearly, his squad didn't believe him, but he didn't have time for their concerns, his concern for Nara's health and well-being trumped everything else right now. He pointed at the lead soldier, "Go back to base. Report back to Arslan. I'm going to help Nara."

The Ubroran Ranger clearly didn't want to heed his order, but military discipline won the day, "We expect to see you at base shortly," he said. His squad turned and hustled back the way he came, leaving him and Nara alone. Sascha looked in disbelief as his friend continued to stand and stare forward like she was a mannequin. He decided that he needed to get Nara out of here and to somewhere private. He picked up his friend in his arms and started walking back to Lirri's apartment.

The fact that Nara didn't utter a single word after he picked her up scared him so deeply that he couldn't think about it. Nara wasn't exactly shy about physical contact, but she would never let herself be…handled… like this. Showing weakness wasn't exactly something Nara made a habit of doing. Yes, she had opened up to him, but that was very different from letting herself be carried as if she was a sack of fruit from the market.

While he jogged towards Lirri's house, he spared a quick second to look down at Nara. Limp in his arms, her eyes continued to stare forward blankly. "What happened to you, Nara?" he asked to her prostrate form. As he expected, he received no reply from his friend.

He was able to bundle Nara inside the front door to Lirri's apartment without incident. Once inside, he carried her up to her room. He had hoped that the vaguely familiar surroundings might snap her out of her stupor, but even after he placed her on her bed, letting her legs swing over the side, the Togruta paid no attention to him or anything around her. It was eerily like when he had pet her rear lekku, and she had uncharacteristically curled up against him. Except that had been kind of cute, a nice intimate moment between friends, which Nara had snapped out of as soon as he had stopped brushing her lekku. This…whatever it was…was much worse.

He wondered if he should try petting her lekku again, and hoping that it would potentially break Nara out of her daze. He was nowhere near as comfortable as Nara was in making physical contact with another Jedi, especially in a vaguely intimate manner. Yet he thought that it was an idea worth trying. Cautiously he reached out and placed his hand lightly on her dark purple and red lekku. Nara didn't even stir in the slightest. Biting his lip, he began petting her lekku softly, hoping for any sort of reaction. Yet no matter what he tried to do, there was no reaction from the Togruta. She was just...gone.

At a complete loss at what he should do, he did the only thing he knew how to do when he was in trouble, he pulled out his comlink and dialed his Master's frequency. As it rang he glanced over at his Togruta friend, who was still staring lifelessly forward, her eyes unfocused. Each time he looked over at Nara, he felt his nerves and his confidence fraying a little more. This war had cost him so much, he wasn't sure if he could take his best friend going into a catatonic state without losing himself completely. As the comlink continued to ring without anyone picking up, he yelled, "Come on! Pick up the comlink Master! I need you!"

Not getting a response from his Master, he tried contacting Master Tiplee. Again, no one picked up. Frustrated, he almost whipped the comlink into the wall. He decided that was a bad idea, so he kicked the wall to relieve his frustrations. That just caused his foot to hurt, but it was better than breaking his comlink at least. Sascha tried to think about what he could do right now. He couldn't admit to the resistance that Nara had…shattered like this, as it would probably destroy the morale of the troops, which was low enough as it was. He could maybe get Arslan to come by, but Arslan was just an organizer, he wasn't a psychiatrist, he wasn't a Jedi. So it was up to him to figure out how to get Nara to snap out of it.

He took a deep breath and slapped Nara lightly on the cheek. Mentally bracing himself for Nara to launch herself at him, or slap him right back, he watched with increasing desperation as the Togruta swayed back into her previous position.

Sascha was quickly running out of ideas. He ran a hand through his hair and started pacing around the room. He has to try something else, he decided. He can't just leave Nara like this.

He dropped into the Force and expanded his awareness towards Nara. Usually all he would have to do to start a meditation session with his friend would be to brush his presence against hers – almost like knocking on the door – and the Togruta would let him in. Then they would be able to meditate together. It was exactly how they had meditated together just a few days ago.

Now, when he searched for Nara in the Force he could barely find her, even though her physical body was not far away from his. This isn't right, he thought to himself, he had never ever had a problem getting through to Nara. He'd never, ever had a problem like this. He'd never even heard of something like this happening. How could Nara just be...gone like this? Was she going to be gone forever?

He probed Nara's Force presence. All of the Togruta's mental shielding is up, which prevented him from doing anything more than a gentle probe.

Returning to full awareness of himself, he considered doing something that he'd never thought he'd have to do. If her overwhelmed Nara's mental defences, he could potentially bring her out of her stupor. It was a risky plan, even if he managed to get Nara's defences down. He had absolutely no idea what was going on inside Nara's mind, so even if he did get inside, he might be able not solve anything. Plus there were the inherent moral concerns. This was something that Jedi were trained to do only in the most dire situations.

You have to do this for her, he told himself. Nara would do that same for him, of that he had little doubt. Whatever the risks, he knew that Nara had faith in him. He would do whatever he could to help Nara.

He sat and got comfortable on the floor of the room. Then he expanded his Force presence towards Nara. When he found Nara in the Force, again he was blocked by her mental shielding. Taking a deep breath he did something that Jedi were trained not to do, he was going to invade the mind of an innocent. He tried to forcibly enter Nara's mind, only to find that it was like running head first into a durasteel wall.

Sascha blinked. He had not expected to be rebuffed like that.

He decided that he needed to be stronger, more forceful. This time when he met Nara's mental defences, he was prepared. The initial mental pushback from Nara almost shoved him away, but he held on tenaciously, willing himself to not be overcome.

Feeling like he was waging a mental war, Sascha redoubled his efforts, pushing himself deeper into the Force. Nara's defences started crumbling, slowly but surely. The only problem was that Sascha was pushing himself to his limits. Knowing that he had committed himself to this task, he held on, using his friendship with Nara power his efforts.

After a long, fatiguing, battle, Nara's mental defences had almost been completely worn down. Giving one last effort, he pushed hard and barrelled through the remainder of the walls in Nara's mind. This time, he succeeded.

Once he had broken through, a wave of fatigue came over him. He knew that he'd have to take a moment to regroup before going searching for what was wrong with Nara.

He didn't get the chance.

Still 'inside' of Nara's mind, he felt himself being sucked into a vortex. He tried to resist, but he was far too fatigued too tired to put up anything more than a feeble defence. He tried to return to his own body, return to control of himself, but he wasn't able to. Whatever was happening, he was trapped for the moment.

Against his will, he was shown a vision of Nara's past. What he was shown shocked him. It was the memory that Nara had shared with him a few days ago, of Nara being taken away from her parents. Sascha understood immediately. Nara's mental break had caused her to return to the only other time in her life that she had an equal level of mental anguish, the day she had been taken from her family, her self-admitted nightmare.

Sascha followed along with the memory, seeing Nara saying her last goodbyes to her family. It was such a tender and sad moment, he was very glad that he didn't have a similar memory of leaving his parents. The hardest part was watching Nara say goodbye to her mother. The connection between mother and daughter was so very strong, especially considering that Nara hadn't had a moment of training in the Force.

Still, the memory continued as it had when Nara showed him it. Nara walked away from her family and towards the Jedi in his or her brown overrobe. The little Togruta offered her hand to the Jedi and the Jedi bent down and accepted it, and started walking away. Nara got a few steps away from her parents before a pang of sadness came through the Force from her mother. Nara turned and tried to go back to her mother, but the Jedi picked her up and continued walking away.

That was then the memory took a very unexpected turn. Young Nara reached up and knocked the hood off of the Jedi's head. The Jedi, who had been faceless in Nara's memory, now had a face. And the face was his.

 _Oh…that's not good._

As she had in the real memory, Nara attacked the Jedi that was taking her away, but unlike the real memory Nara actually had some success, dragging the Jedi down to the ground, where she wailed away on the Jedi with tiny balled fists.

Sascha, knowing that this memory was going to get worse before it go better, made a last effort to pull himself away from Nara. This time, he was able to do so.

Disorientated, he took stock of his condition. He was breathing hard and it felt like he had run a marathon. He wasn't exactly sure what had just happened, but he was very happy to be back in control of himself.

Hopefully, he looked up at Nara. The Togruta was blinking slowly, but her eyes were back to normal. Sascha released a slow breath, "Nara, are you with me?"

"You took my mother away," Nara said slowly, softly, threateningly.

Shaken by the vision, and the sudden cottonmouth that he had from exerting himself so fully, it took him a moment to form a reply, "Nara, that's not…"

"You took my family away," Nara said, quicker now, with a definitive edge to her voice.

He shook his head, "Nara that wasn't me, that was just…"

Nara stood, her body posture threatening, predatory. "I HATE YOU!" Nara yelled. "YOU TOOK ME AWAY FROM MY FAMILY!" I'll KILL YOU FOR WHAT YOU DID!"

Nara leaped at him and tackled him to the ground, wrapping her fingers around his throat and squeezing with deadly intent.


	50. Chapter 50: Voices

**Lord Darth Yoda -** Yeah what Sascha did is, uh, not a good idea. It does show how desperate he was though. I'd say what Sascha did was very close to what Kylo was doing in TFA. Except doing that technique to a Force sensitive is not a good idea, see Ren, Kylo.

 **Speechbubbleme** \- Thanks. I really like that chapter, but sometimes I read it and wonder if people would get too confused. It's an 'ambitious' chapter to be sure.

 **Mr. Insane -** What happened in Nara's mind was basically - she's re-living her nightmare, and then Sascha enters her mind. To make sense of this intrusion, her mind does the logical thing and replaces the faceless Jedi with Sascha. So basically, Nara's nightmare gets changed because Sascha was stupid enough to try to invade Nara's mind without having any sort of plan to deal with things. **  
**

A/N - I've got nothing to add. Were are going to start getting in the homestretch of this one. It's been a long one, and hopefully the conclusion will be satisfying.

Anyways please enjoy the next chapter.

* * *

 **Chapter 50: Voices**

 _What kind of Jedi do I hope he is?_

 _I can't tell you that. But I can tell you what kind of man I hope he will become. I hope he'll have friends to confide in, to laugh with. I hope he has a special someone that lights up his life whenever they are around. I hope he has people watching over him, people that care if he lives or dies. I hope that wherever he goes they'll say 'That was Sascha Whitestar, and he did his best.'_

 _My hopes for Sascha would be the same if he were a Jedi or a Janitor. Being a good person is its own reward._

-Excerpt from 'My Son, the Jedi' by Donah and Robry Whitestar

* * *

Sascha was so stunned by Nara attacking him, that it took him a second to react. By the time he had processed he was under attack, he was flat on his back and Nara's fingers were wrapped around his throat and squeezing the life out of him. It only took a second for him to feel his vision constricting, his brain panicking that air was no longer flowing freely up his windpipe. He grabbed at Nara's wrists and tried to pull her hands away from his throat. Weakened as he was from his previous exertions of trying to get through to Nara, he had little success .

He looked upward at Nara. His friend's face was a mask of rage, of years of pent up emotion. Nara had finally gotten her hands on the Jedi that had taken her away from her parents and Sascha was feeling first hand all the things that she had wanted to do to him. Sascha tried to speak her name, to try to communicate with his friend, but it only came out as an unintelligible gurgle.

Five seconds after Nara had started strangling him, his vision was starting to blur and his reflexes were becoming slowed. Trying another idea, Sascha bucked his hips and tried to throw Nara off of him, but Nara simply kneed him in the stomach and continued pressing down on his throat.

He knew he was too weak to get Nara off of him, he had trouble doing that at the best of times, he wasn't going to be able to do it when he was exhausted and Nara was running on all sorts of adrenaline. He still hadn't given up though, he just needed some sort of idea as to how to stop this.

Seven seconds after Nara's attack began he realized that the Togruta's mental defences were still down. Frantically, he tried to press a thought directly into her mind in the hope that he could get through to her.

' _Nara, I'm not your enemy_.'

Nara showed absolutely no reaction to his plea.

Vainly, he clawed at Nara's arms, hoping that causing her physical pain might wake her up from whatever state she was currently in. Nara growled, a deep, primal sound, and if anything squeezed her hands tighter around his neck.

This was it, thought Sascha as his vision narrowed, this is how he was going to die, killed by one of his best friends. It was hard imagining a worse way to die, his life being choked out of him by someone he'd considered to be one of his closest allies. Once Nara realized what she had done, she'd be lost, never able to forgive herself for what she had done. Nara may have been killing one Jedi, but she was signing two death warrants.

Eleven seconds after the attack began, his vision almost completely faded, he gathered himself for one last effort and drove one last thought into Nara's mind, putting all of his remaining strength into it, hoping it would not be the last thought he would ever have.

* * *

' _Nara, I'm your family_.'

Nara Nalto jerked awake from the horrible nightmare she'd been having. She'd been having her usual nightmare where that nameless, faceless Jedi had taken her away from her family. Except this time she was fully grown, and the faceless Jedi had been Sascha.

In her perverted nightmare she had launched herself at Sascha, and for once she had no difficulty in overcoming him, which was odd as usually the nightmare centred around her inability to defeat the Jedi that was taking her away from her parents. She had latched her thin fingers around Sascha's neck and started choking him. It was a strange perversion of her usual nightmare. The one person she'd never attack would be Sascha, a person she trusted more than anyone in the galaxy.

She was glad that nightmare had ended just before she could have caused serious damage to her friend. Even in something that wasn't real, she didn't want to harm him. She'd discuss her nightmare with Sascha, she decided. As discomfiting as an idea as it was, he seemed to be able to help him through these things.

Nara looked down to find herself in the exact same pose that she had been just before her nightmare had ended, perched atop Sascha, hands around his throat, squeezing. Her friend's face was red and his eyes were slowly drifting closed.

Panic gripped her mind.

That meant…

That meant her nightmare had been real.

No.

 _No_.

That meant…

"Sascha!" she shouted.

She extracted her hands from around his throat and scrambled off of him.

Overcome by her emotions, Nara raced away from Sascha's prone form and into the furthest corner of the room. She faced the corner, and held her head in her hands. What had she just done?

Taking in breath in short, panting gasps, she tried to piece together the last few hours of her life. She remembered fighting with her squad, the she remembered the Mandalorians coming and attakcing….

Nara screamed, in shock and pain, now her memories were coming back to her. She remembered seeing a pair of the fabled Ubroran Rangers killed in right front of her. She remembered how hot the blood that had squirted onto her was. Then she remembered…turning and running from the battle.

"I ran," she said in disbelief. She had abandoned her squad, abandoned those that had counted on her. It was something that she never thought that she would do. She had broke and run, away from her duty, away from those that had been counting on her to protect them.

"What have I become?" she asked the room.

The room began to spin around her, and she heaved the contents of her stomach onto the floor.

Unable to stop herself, she threw up again.

Nara felt totally and utterly worthless. She had abandoned her squad, likely to their deaths, and then totally lost herself. She had lost herself so badly that she had sunken back into her most painful nightmare. And then in that nightmare she had replaced the object of her irrational hatred with the visage of her best friend.

Yet, apparently, she had been so out of control that she had thought her nightmare was real, and tried to actually kill Sascha. And not just kill him, kill him in one of the most visceral ways possible, by choking him to death. Nara would have thrown up again, had there been anything left in her stomach to throw up.

After several long minutes, she managed to sit up and move away from the mess she had made. There was no way that Sascha was ever going to forgive her for what she had done. There was no way that he could forgive the way that she had fallen apart. There was no way that she could face Arslan or any of the resistance members again? How could she? She'd abandoned her duty.

But the hardest loss would be Sascha. Sascha meant something to her. He was her best and closest friend. She didn't want to lose that, but there was no way in hell their friendship could go back to the way things had been.

"Nara…" Sascha's voice. Weak, garbled. She had done that to him.

Nara was torn between two competing impulses. One was to run over to him, apologize, heal him, and try to fix what she had done. The other was to get up, and run, run far away from this place, and forget she ever was a Jedi. Live her life as a hermit. Surely that was all she deserved.

"Nara…"

Mind made up, she rushed to Sascha's side and knelt beside him. Her friend was still showing the aftereffects of her assault His eyes were closed as he lay on his back, but he was breathing easier and his face was returning to its usual shade. At a glance, it looked like she had been able to stop herself before she had caused any permanent damage to him.

"Sascha…" She tried to find some words to say, to apologize for what she had done, but no words she had yet learned seemed appropriate to say at this moment. Force, if she could just turn back time, she'd undo all of this.

Sascha's eyes opened and found hers. Once he saw her, he smiled, "So glad…to see you. Thought I…lost you," he panted.

Nara sobbed once, pulled him towards her and settled his head lightly on her thigh. Despite the fact that she had nearly killed him minutes earlier, Sascha seemed completely at ease with her touch. She was so, so glad that he was still with her. Absentmindedly, she gently brushed her hand through Sascha's damp, dishevelled hair, "I'm so sorry Sascha…I never wanted to hurt you, or hurt anyone."

"I know, Nara." He reached up, grabbed her arm softly, and smirked, "You are messing up my hair though. Please desist"

She laughed. Force, it felt good to laugh. She stopped running her fingers through Sascha's hair, but she didn't see the need to move him off of her. With practised hands, she gently patted around Sascha's throat, trying to decide if she had done any damage to it, "Are you okay, Sascha?"

"Been better," he joked softly. "But I'll survive."

"I shouldn't be cuddling you like this, should I?"

"No, it's…nice. Comforting." To emphasize his point he settled his hands over his stomach and seemed to relax even further.

"You're not afraid of me?"

Eyes still closed peacefully, Sascha's eyebrows furrowed, "No. Why should I be?"

"Well, about a minute ago I just about killed you."

"That wasn't really you, and we both know that."

"But it was me. My body. My hands." Nara looked down at her purple hands in revulsion. She felt bile rising in her throat again, but this time she kept it down. Barely.

Sascha shifted his head on her thigh, getting comfortable, "Nara, my trust in you hasn't diminished in the slightest. I'm just glad you are here talking to me right now. I was...so scared when you...went away. I would have done anything to bring you back."

Tears formed at the edges of her eyes and she used the sleeve of her robe to wipe them away, "Thanks, Sascha."

"You would have done the same for me," he replied confidently.

Nara was sure that he was right. That thought was strangely comforting. "What exactly happened to me?" she asked cautiously, "There is a big blank spot in my memory and I'd like to fill that in."

Sascha sat up tenderly, and sat in a cross-legged position across from her. Aside from the red marks on his throat and the slight scratchiness of his voice, you wouldn't have thought anything had happened to him. He still looked totally exhausted, but he had looked that way _before_ she had attacked him. "Well, I found you shambling down the road, with blood on your robe. I tried to talk to you, but...you started talking in third person."

"What was I saying?"

Her fellow Padawan closed his eyes, obviously trying to remember the words, "It was something like ' Everyone always leaves Nara' and 'I'm going away now.'"

A shiver went up her spine on hearing those words, "I was talking in third person?"

"Yeah. It was really bizarre. You really scared the hell out of me, Nara," Sascha said, casting his eyes at the floor for a moment.

Nara closed her eyes , "I'm so sorry. I don't know what happened to me today, but I do know that my strength, my resolve is just fading, piece by piece. I guess today just broke me." She put her head in her hands and cried again. Amazingly, her supply of tears had not run out yet.

Sascha tenderly grabbed her wrists and gently pulled her hands away from her face, "Nara, there is nothing to be ashamed of. Nothing."

Without consciously thinking about it, Nara flung herself at Sascha, burying her head in his chest, her tears continuing to fall. Sascha took a second to react, but when he did, he merely adjusted himself so that he could wrap his arms around her body, not in an intimate or possessive way, but in a friendly, comforting manner. "I'm sorry," she said, her words coming out muffled, "I'm so weak, I'm sorry."

"You aren't weak Nara. You are one of the strongest people I know."

"I don't feel very strong right now," she said, as she extracted herself from Sascha's arms and brushed herself off. Force she was such an emotional wreck, going from one extreme to the other.

"I don't either," he admitted.

That was a very cheerful thought. The way things were going maybe tomorrow Sascha would be the one that broke. Stop focusing on the negative, she told herself. She forced herself to look at Sascha, "Anyway, you didn't finish the story about what happened to me."

He nodded, "I brought you back here, I actually...carried you back here."

"You carried me?"

"Yeah, I mean you aren't exactly heavy, Nara."

That was true, but it wasn't exactly a comfortable idea either. "And I still didn't respond to you?"

Sascha ran his hand through his already dishevelled hair, "No. Like I said, you basically just...went away."

"How did you get me...back?"

Sascha immediately seemed uncomfortable, "I tried everything I knew to get you to respond, I tried to call Master Brynar and Master Tiplee, but they weren't responding so, I, uh, kind of used the Force and entered your mind."

"You, WHAT!"

"I only did it as a last resort!" he replied, scrambling away from her slightly.

Perturbed, but knowing that Sascha wasn't exactly the type to invade her mind on a lark, she held her hands up, "It's okay, I'm not mad. I'm just...surprised."

Sascha grimaced, "It wasn't exactly my favourite thing to do. I'm still a bit creeped out by it. In fact, seeing after how it turned out, I don't think I'll do it ever again."

Nara's curiosity outweighed her desire to end this conversation right now, "So what exactly happened?"

"Well, when I got inside if your mind, I was basically sucked into your nightmare. And you saw what happened."

That she had. Not wanting to dwell on that, she asked another question, "How did you snap me out of it? When I attacked you, I mean."

He rubbed the back of his head, "Well...even though you were...attacking me, your mental defences were still down. I was able to press a thought into your head..." Sascha trailed off.

"Well...what was it?" Her friend hesitated. "What?" she said, "It can't possibly be that bad."

"The thought was...Nara, I'm your family."

Nara blinked, and her mind went completely and utterly blank for a moment.

Sascha, obviously a bit nervous, continued, "I just thought that because losing your family was obviously your biggest nightmare, I could counter it by telling you what should be evident, that you gained a new family and that I'm part of it."

"You believe that," she said slowly.

Sascha nodded, "Yes. You are a part of my family Nara. Not my biological family, of course. All Jedi lose one family, but gain another."

Finally, import of what Sascha was saying hit her. Overwhelmed, she put a hand on her head, just to keep it steady, "You _are_ my family, aren't you?"

"You obviously believe it as well," Sascha pointed out, "Otherwise I never could have pulled you out of your nightmare."

Nara realized that she had been missing the obvious truth in her life, that Sascha was right. She had a family. Tiplee was her mother, her guardian. Her clanmates should have been her siblings, but she had pushed them away. Still, eventually she had found friends, mostly with Sascha's old clan. Sascha himself was obviously something of a sibling to her. A brother. She had always wanted a brother.

"Let your old family go, Nara," Sascha said softly, "You don't need them. You have me and Tiplee and every other Jedi in the Temple. We've always been your family. You may have pushed us away when you were younger, but we will always be there for you."

"I...see that now," she said. She paused for a second as an idea came to mind, "I need you to do something with me, Sascha."

"Do what?" he said cautiously.

"I need to go into my nightmare again. I want you to come with me."

Sascha's eyes narrowed, "Are you sure that is a good idea?"

"Sure?" Nara laughed bitterly, "Force no. But I think that its the last step to this process."

Nara expected Sascha to object, or ask more questions, but he simply just shifted his position so that he was sitting beside her. Nara almost couldn't believe the amount of faith that Sascha had in her. It was the first time in her life that she'd ever felt that she had someone that had complete and utter trust in her. That thought warmed her heart in ways she could not yet describe.

"If we are going to meditate together, you need to help me," he admitted. "I'm not exactly strong right now."

For the first time Nara realized that Sascha's presence in the Force is strangely muted and that her friend appeared to be almost swaying as he sat beside her. She was pretty sure that if left alone for a minute, he would probably fall into a deep slumber, that's how tired he was. While there was a part of her that wanted to do this alone, there was another part that want to take Sascha along with her. The part of her that desires Sascha's help was the stronger one at the moment. People didn't keep secrets from family. And Sascha was her family. More or less.

Nara opened herself to the Force, preparing to meditate. In the Force, she found Sascha doing the same thing, with much more difficulty. Gently she guided Sascha so that they can meditate together. When she was sure that she is ready, Nara summoned her nightmare for what she hopes will be the last time.

Quickly, her nightmare presented itself as usual. This time though, Nara wasn't afraid of what she is about to watch, she expects it. She's almost at peace with it. But not fully. Not yet.

Then, everything changed. Nara was no longer the four-year-old Togruta, of her nightmare, she the normal version of herself, a sixteen year old Jedi Padawan. Her parents have aged up as well. As has her sister. Nara looked over at Lia, who is now essentially an adult Togruta. Lia is still beautiful, but her feelings of jealousy towards her have faded, she's happy that Lia is beautiful and Nara doesn't really care that she's better looking than her. She just wants to be happy in her own skin.

When Nara turned around to face the Jedi that had been there to take her away, she is not really surprised to see that the visage of that Jedi has been replaced by Sascha, who stands there peacefully, simply observing her. He made a quick gesture, as if to say 'do you want me to be by your side?' She gives him a quick shake of her head. She appreciates the support of her best friend, but this is her problem to deal with.

Nara, for the first time was in control of her memory. For the first time, she wasn't a youngling, she was just herself. For the first time _she_ controls what she sees. For the first time, she controls what she does. And she was going to say goodbye to her old family. She was going to let go of her past for good.

Nara turned around and faced her sister, Lia. She stepped forward and embraced her. Her sister hugged her back. "I'm sorry I didn't get to know you, Lia, and I'm sorry I never wrote to you like I said I would. They just...wouldn't let us."

A small smile appeared on the lips of her sister, "It was the promise of a child, Nara. I'm not angry at you. I knew I was giving you up forever, I just wanted you to be strong." Lia took a step back, appraising her, "And it looks like you grew up to be strong."

Nara stepped forward and hugged her sister again, "Thanks, Lia. Thanks, sister."

"You are welcome, sister," said Lia smiling easily.

Lia stepped back and Nara moved on to the next Togruta in line, her father. "Hi dad," she said softly.

Her father pulled her into his arms. Nara relented easily, letting her head rest on his chest. "I'm so proud of you Nara," he said. "I hope you showed the Jedi that you were the best."

She broke the embrace softly, "I'm not the best," she said quietly, "But I am...good. And I get better every day."

Her father grabbed her wrists lightly and held them to his face, "There is no more a father can ask of his daughter." He paused, "I hope you are not angry at us for giving you away."

Nara took a step back, "I'm not angry father. For a long time...I was. I was angry at you for giving me up, I was angry at the Jedi for taking me away from you. Anger and fear clouded my judgment. For the first time, I see things clearly." She took a deep breath, "You made the right decision, father. I was born to be a Jedi."

Her dad sniffed, emotional, and released her wrists, "I have nothing more to say then, except that you make me proud every day. I love you, my daughter."

"I love you too, Dad."

Her father stepped back and Nara moved to stand in front of the last person in the line of Togrutas, her mother. This...was going to be hard. Her mother stepped forward, and Nara stepped into her arms, revelling in the warmth of her embrace.

She could have stayed in the embrace forever, but after a minute, with an effort a will, she pulled away. If she had stayed any longer, she might not have had the willpower to do so. "It's time for me to go, mother."

Her mother smiled at her, "Of course it is. You are my light in the stars, child. I could not be more proud of you."

That got her to sob, but she didn't break down, she stayed strong. She was in charge of her emotions, not the other way around. "I'll always remember you," she said, her voice taut, emotional.

Her mother rubbed her arm gently, "Of course you will. But your place is not with us." Her Mother looked up, "You take your place in the stars, my child."

"Thanks, mom. I love you."

"I know, my child. Goodbye, Nara," she said solemnly.

"Goodbye, mom."

Nara hesitated for a moment. She didn't really want to do this. But to move on with her life, to let go of what had been her attachment, she had to. She turned from her family, slowly and started walking away, putting one foot in front of the other. She walked towards Sascha, who simply stood there, waiting for her to reach him. An observer, but also a source of strength, a representation of the family that she would gain. Sascha, her brother. Tiplee, a surrogate mother. Yoda, a wise old uncle. Aurine, a feisty aunt. And on and on.

She turned and faced her family again. She took the time to remember this moment, to look at each member of her family. One by one, her family winked away into nothingness. But when they were gone, Nara didn't feel like she had lost anything. Nothing had been taken from her. Her family would always exist in her heart. They would always be a part of who she was.

She reached Sascha, who smiled at her. "It's time to go back," he said.

Nara nodded, "Yes. It is."

She ended the meditation, and realized almost immediately that Sascha's comlink was ringing insistently.

Sascha picked his comlink off his belt and activated it. "Hi Master," Sascha said tiredly.

"Sascha, what is wrong with your voice?" said Aurine.

Nara started to speak but Sascha silenced her with a fierce glare, "I got hit in the throat. Don't worry about it."

Nara supposed that basically was telling the truth.

"You sound tired," said Aurine.

Sascha glanced at her for a second, "We are both exhausted. I think we are both done fighting."

A stunned silence persisted over several seconds. "What do you mean you are done fighting?" asked Aurine.

"I mean we are just done. Exhausted. Out of our minds."

"I'm done for sure," she said. Nara wasn't going to fight anymore. She didn't quite trust herself enough to do that. Nara paused, something was missing from this conversation, "Wait a moment...where is my Master?"

"Oh. That was what I was calling you about. She's coming to Bontha. She'll be there in a few hours." Aurine's voice became strangely confident, "We are putting our endgame in motion. We are going to free Ubrora."


	51. Chapter 51: Tiplee's Burden, Part One

**Lord Darth Yoda -** Yeah I think there's a certain...duality almost to some Jedi. Nara's sort of an Anakin parallel, but Nara gets to do things the 'right' way (and she was younger than Anakin when she left home.) As for the Masters...we are going to get to know what at least one of them sensed in this chapter. I think Sascha's response where he covers for Nara is more of a 'Sascha defending Nara' thing than any sort of teenage rebellion (though there's a hint of that too.)

 **Speechbubbleme** \- Thanks! I was hoping that people would enjoy learning Nara's backstory in a sort of unconventional way.

 **Mr. Insane -** Man, for a series that doesn't exactly kill off a lot of heroes, you sure are paranoid about characters dying! But no, Nara's not going to fall in this chapter (because she doesn't appear :p). But she'll be asked to take up the sword at least one...last time **  
**

A/N - I've got nothing to add.

Anyways please enjoy the next chapter.

* * *

 **Chapter 51: Tiplee's Burden, Part One**

 _The burden of a parent is to raise your child into adulthood, no matter the cost. A good parent is one that successfully guides their children in such a way that they feel protected but not sheltered. A child must make mistakes, but not mistakes so bad that they scar them for life._

 _Does that make us bad parents if we give up our son at the age of two? Have we abandoned our responsibilities to our son, to society at large?_

 _I don't think I want to know the answer to that._

-Excerpt from 'My Son, the Jedi' by Donah and Robry Whitestar

* * *

Jedi Knight Tiplee sat in a quiet room in an Ubroran military base and meditated. She knew that she wouldn't be able to meditate for long, but she was going to take the free time she had managed to claw out to do something that she hadn't been able to do as much as she wanted. While she had never the most fastidious meditator, she was beginning to acutely feel the lack of time that she spent just relaxing with the Force. To be honest with herself, all she wanted was just one hour where she would not be assaulted by all the thoughts that were coming into her head. She wanted one hour where she didn't question herself, one hour where she didn't worry about her apprentice, one hour where she didn't worry about if she'd ever see her sister again.

She didn't get an hour of meditation. She maybe got fifteen minutes.

Tiplee had been emptying her mind of her various concerns when she felt an odd sensation in the Force. Immediately she tried to focus in on it, but as much as she tried, she could not hone in on it. Frowning, she ended her attempt at meditation and turned her attention to this mystery.

After a careful search, Tiplee got the sense that something was missing. It didn't take much investigation to determine that what was missing was the presence of her apprentice in the Force. She panicked for a moment, thinking that the most logical explanation for her missing Nara was that she had died. Still, she eliminated that possibility quickly. It was highly unlikely that Nara had passed away without her experiencing something more concrete through the Force. Their Master-Padawan bond was not the strongest, but it did exist.

Still, the knowledge that something had happened to Nara solidified something that had been bouncing around in her mind for a while.

She returned to her makeshift room in the barracks and started to pack.

It didn't take long to do so. She traveled light.

The hardest part of what she was going to do was going to be explaining herself to Aurine. Since the war on Ubrora had begun, Aurine had taken on more and more responsibilities, but as Tiplee had observed her, she was becoming less and less like a Jedi Knight and more like a military officer. The two roles were not compatible. It had taken her a long time to realize this, perhaps too long, but now that she had reached her conclusion, in her heart she knew it was the correct one. Now she just needed to convince Aurine of that.

Tiplee activated her comlink and dialed for Aurine. The human answered quickly, "What?"

"I need to talk to you," Tiplee said calmly.

"Now?" responded Aurine, incredulous.

"Yes," she replied firmly. "I'm in my room. Come see me."

"I'll be right there," Aurine replied.

A few moments later, Aurine opened the door to her room and stood strode inside with a purposeful stride, "Did you really need to interrupt me? I'm putting the last touches on our plan." In Tiplee's opinion, Aurine looked absolutely horrible. While Aurine was never the most fastidious person, and was generally dismissive of her general appearance, the war on Ubrora had taken that to the extreme. Aurine's hair had a greasy sheen to it, a sign that she hadn't showered in days, she had deep bags under her eyes and though the pupils themselves remained bright, Aurine looked more like a homeless person than a Jedi.

However, Tiplee kept her opinion to herself. "You will need to make some modifications to that plan, I'm afraid," she said.

Aurine blinked, surprised. "I spent the past few days slaving over these plans, and _we_ agreed to them with the entire War Council last night, so do you mind telling me _why_ I'm making changes to them?"

"I need to go to Bontha," she said plainly. "In fact _we_ should go to Bontha."

Aurine's look of confusion only intensified, "Why?"

"Do you not feel that our Padawans are fading, second by second?"

Aurine turned away, pained, "They are playing their role admirably."

Tiplee wanted to go comfort Aurine, but it would send the wrong message right now, "Then I will go play my role too."

The blonde-haired human turned back around, her emotions in check again, for now. "You are playing your role," she said with barely concealed restraint, "You are going to help me liberate this planet from this crazed dictator."

Tiplee nodded, "I will do that. But first I will go to Bontha."

Aurine slammed a first into her thigh, "No, you won't. I need you here. I need you to follow the _plan_."

Tiplee paced, "You are not my commanding officer, Aurine. I am not a soldier that you can order around. I am your friend, and a Jedi Knight. My decisions are my own."

Aurine moved towards her and grabbed her shoulders, roughly, "Tiplee. Listen to me. I know Sascha and Nara are struggling, but they only need to hold out for another day and a half. Their strength is failing, but I believe they will last that long. They just need to be a distraction for a little while longer."

Gently, Tiplee removed Aurine's hands from her shoulders, "Aurine, you are speaking like someone who does not have access to the Force. Look into the Force for your Padawan. He is scared, he is tired. He wants his Master. He and Nara should be here with us."

"WHO ARE YOU TO TELL ME WHAT TO DO WITH MY PADAWAN!" Aurine shouted. Aurine quieted momentarily, and spoke in an insistent tone, "I am trying to free an entire planet, Tiplee. The fate of my apprentice is just one life. How do I weigh that against the lives of all the other Ubrorans under my command? The lives of everyone on Ubrora?"

"You don't," Tiplee replied simply.

Aurine shook her head in confusion, "What?"

Tiplee knew that she would have to approach this subject carefully, "Aurine, my friend, you've turned into a military officer. Now I finally see the folly of letting you take all this responsibility. You've stopped being a Jedi Knight and have become a General. You cannot be both." Tiplee paced, "You are approaching your tasks like it is some sort of equation that can be solved. You are trying to figure out how many lives the lives of our Padawans are worth? Do you know what the answer is Aurine?"

Aurine paused, then shook her head.

"There isn't one. And merely asking the question is bad enough."

That answer didn't seem to satisfy her fellow Jedi Knight, "There has to be some sort of answer."

"Even if there is, it would not be relevant to us. We are Jedi. We don't follow the cold logic of mathematics, we follow the will of the Force."

Aurine snorted derisively, "That answer is completely unsatisfying. And far too philosophical. We are talking about real people here, Tiplee. A real planet. If we don't free Ubrora, we are talking about generations of Ubrorans being born into...I don't even know what Ubrora will become if we don't win."

Tiplee held a hand up placatingly, "I don't disagree with helping the Ubrorans free their planet, Aurine. It's just that we cannot afford to lose our principals to do it. A good Jedi would not leave their apprentice to die if they could stop it. We swore an oath to protect our apprentices. I do not intend to break my oath."

Aurine glanced downward, and brushed a hand through her disheveled hair, "It's not that I don't care about Sascha, or that I'm forswearing my oath as a Jedi, its just that I believe that the fate of the planet is more important than anyone's lives. Even mine. I can't let emotion colour my judgement, I need to make the right decision for Ubrora."

"No, Aurine, you are thinking about this all wrong," she said gently. "We cannot simply say that we must win, no matter the cost. That is not the Jedi way. Because that path will lead us to the dark side."

Aurine shook her head derisively, "Now you are going too far. I'm not going to the dark side. I'm protecting a planet!"

Tiplee refused to lose her calm, "I'm just saying, Aurine, that you must think about the logical conclusion of our path. Do we truly have no rules while fighting this conflict? You've already used deception when you lied to General Ecalt a few weeks ago. What will be the next piece of ourselves that we will throw away for the sake of 'winning?' We can win this war, but lose ourselves. Tell me then, have we really won?"

Her fellow Jedi Knight seemed to take her arguments seriously for the first time, "I still say the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. Even our needs," she said, but to Tiplee her voice lacked conviction.

Tiplee knew that she needed to drive her point home by taking this from the theoretical to the practical. "Let me ask you a question. If it would guarantee the freedom of Ubrora, would you kill your own apprentice?"

The blonde-haired Jedi Knight looked shaken. She turned away from her, took a few shambling steps before sinking to her knees. Quietly, Tiplee moved to her side. Aurine's face was a mask of pain and sadness, "I wouldn't," she said with conviction, "but...I considered it for a split-second. I _considered_ it." Aurine shuddered violently, "What have I become?"

Tiplee spoke gently, "You are a woman whose sense of compassion and justice has overridden her training. You must know Aurine that all of this is simply motivated by a desire to help. But you've become emotionally attached...to the fate of the planet. You need to let go. The fate of Ubrora does not solely rest on your shoulders"

Shakily, Aurine rose to her feet, "Yes...I see that now." Her friend looked away, eyes unfocused, "I suppose I reacted this way because I never had time to stop and think about what I was doing. I was always moving from one crisis to another, and I thought that I had to handle each one personally."

Tiplee reached out and softly grabbed her friend's shoulder, "I was doing the same thing that you were, Aurine. We both got caught up in trying to help we forgot to ask if we should help, and what our limits should be as Jedi Knights."

"We should still be helping," Aurine said quietly.

Tiplee nodded sharply, "Absolutely. Jedi defend those that cannot defend themselves. But that includes our Padawans," she said pointedly. While Tiplee was pleased to see that Aurine had quickly seen her side of the argument, she had no intention of being delayed here. She was leaving for Bontha, and soon.

"The problem is, Tiplee, that if I step down as leader of the Ubroran Defence Force, there is no one that can replace me. No one is even remotely qualified."

Tiplee let a small smile play on her face, she had anticipated this. "We have a replacement for you. His name is Pravin Ecalt."

"Pravin?" exclaimed Aurine.

"Yes. He is an actual military officer, you know."

"Can we really trust him?"

Tiplee shrugged, "We already have made our grand plan based on him telling the truth. If he has deceived us, we really don't have much more to lose by trusting him further."

Aurine shrugged, "I guess that is true." The human glanced around the empty room, "I suppose there won't be a better time to tell him the news."

Tiplee stamped a foot on the floor impatiently, "Aurine, we have to go _now_ , or have you failed to notice that Nara has almost completely faded from the Force?"

Aurine, stubborn as a bantha, refused to budge, "You can take five minutes to have a conversation with Pravin where we give him control of the armed forces of an entire planet."

Tiplee would have preferred to be already out the door and on her way to Bontha, but she supposed that five minutes probably wouldn't make a difference either way, since it would take her most of the night to get to Bontha anyway.

Aurine and Tiplee walked through the base and found Pravin Ecalt in his usual place in the medbay, engrossed in his datapad. While the Jedi had offered Pravin full run of the base and even offered to let him leave, the human had steadfastly stayed in place, operating as an advisor of sorts. The Pravin Ecalt of today looked a lot better than the Pravin they had rescued from those two Mandalorians. There was an energy to the older man, and a sense of relief that he was finally doing the right thing.

When the former general spotted the two Jedi, Pravin sprang up from the bed he had been sitting on and snapped into a sharp salute. Then, realizing that the Jedi probably weren't sticklers for military procedure, he smiled sheepishly, "Old habits die hard, I'm afraid."

"Hello Pravin," said Aurine, "Are you ready for a promotion?"

Pravin Ecalt eyed the two Jedi warily, "I wasn't aware I was up for a promotion."

"We've decided that we need a change in leadership," said Aurine.

"We'd like you to lead Ubrora's defence, Pravin," she added.

"What!" Pravin paused, "Surely you must be joking."

"No. We are not," said Aurine. "I am a Jedi Knight. I cannot be a General as well. You however, are a military officer of vast experience."

"But I was in charge of the invasion forces," protested Pravin.

"And now you aren't," Tiplee said.

"Now is the time to make up for what you've done. We need you, Pravin," said Aurine. "Help us."

Pravin Ecalt looked past the two Jedi, his eyes distant. "I love the idea of the military. I like the grandeur, the camaraderie between soldiers, the precision of a well trained military unit. I hate war. I hate...loss. I was able to avoid it for the past few years because my command was almost entirely all droids, and no one sheds any tears if droid seven-one-six-two-D has been deactivated. I'm not sure that I want real flesh and blood soldiers at my command. It's a responsibility I've long avoided."

Aurine knelt and put a hand on Pravin's shoulder, "Pravin we are trusting you because we need that sort of emotionally balanced leadership. We know that you will put the lives of your troops first."

"Are you saying you didn't?"

"I did," said Aurine, "But it has been pointed out to me recently, that I've lost sight of who I am and who I need to be." Aurine poked Pravin in the chest, "But you are the only person on the planet with the training, experience and temperament to do this job."

"I am?"

"Is it really that hard to believe?" said Tiplee.

"Everything since this invasion has started has felt hard to believe," said Pravin. He straightened, "But I feel that I must attempt to make up for my…mistake in aiding and abetting this invasion. So if you are giving me this assignment, and telling me I'm the only person that can do it, then I have no choice but to accept."

That was roughly the response that Tiplee had expected from Pravin. The man was a true soldier, and if given command by someone who outranked him, he would fall in line. Pravin was a simple man, a good man, no doubt, but a simple one.

The two Jedi snapped into a sharp salute, "Congratulations, General Ecalt."

The newly minted General stood and accepted their salute, "Thank you, for this faith you are putting in me. I won't let you down."

"We know that you will not, General Ecalt," said Tiplee.

Pravin smiled slightly, "I don't suppose that I could ask for a uniform to denote my rank?"

Aurine shook her head, "I'm afraid all our resources went into fighting the war, not making uniforms."

"Ah, a pity."

There was one last thing that they needed to bring up with Pravin. She gestured to Aurine, "Transmit the plan to Pravin."

While Aurine searched her datapad for the file to send to Pravin, the new General looked confused, "Plan?"

Aurine made a flippant gesture, "Oh you know, a plan to end the war, smash Vash Varless and his stooge, Coren Vox, freeing the planet and writing all of our names into history."

"Has this plan already been put into motion?"

"You started it Pravin. Now you are going to get to finish it."

Pravin looked down at his beeping datapad, "May I have a moment to look at it?"

"Of course. It's your plan now, General Ecalt."

Aurine and Tiplee gave Pravin space and returned twenty minutes later. General Ecalt was taking notes on a pad of flimsi and looking rather thoughtful. "So Pravin, what do you think?"

He hesitated for a moment, "It is certainly a bold plan, thought it does seem tactically sound. Not without a fair number of risks perhaps, but it is about as good of a chance to end this occupation as is possible."

"And do you think you can lead such a plan?" Tiplee asked.

"I can." Pravin glanced down at his notes, "I've already outlined some changes that I'd like to make. With you permission, of course," he added."

Tiplee waved her hand, "You don't need our permission. This is your plan."

"Thank you, Master Jedi. I won't let you down."

Aurine bowed her head, "All of the Ubroran army's resources are yours. If anyone gives you trouble. Let me know."

"Of course, Master Jedi." Pravin buried his head into his datapad and started inputting changes.

She and Aurine quietly slipped back to her room. But when they came to Aurine's room, she stopped. "Aurine? Aren't you going to pack?"

Her friend closed her eyes, "No. You...go to Bontha. I'm going to stay here and think about things. Maybe help Pravin a bit. He'll need the help, I think."

"Aurine..."

"No. My mind is made up. My place is here."

There was a sense of determination around Aurine again, and Tiplee knew that there was no way that she could convince Aurine to come with her. Even the knowledge that her apprentice was in trouble couldn't sway Aurine, and she was sure that her friend had fonder feelings towards Sascha than her. She laid a hand softly on Aurine's shoulder, "Please give me a message I can deliver to Sascha."

Aurine nodded, "I'll send my message to your datapad. Please deliver it to him. And protect him if he needs it."

"I will."

Aurine bowed graciously to her, "May the Force be with you. I'll see you in a few days."

"May the Force be with you, my friend."


	52. Chapter 52: Tiplee's Burden, Part Two

**Lord Darth Yoda -** I don't think Aurine's going to change too much, honestly. She's introspective enough to know 'hey, I really went overboard here, lets not do it again.' But I could certainly see her choosing to stay on Ubrora and helping with the rebuild. Maybe she would even take a temporary break from the Order to do so. I also think that the Sascha-Aurine relationship is pretty firm by this point. But it has certainly been a while since Aurine saw Sascha...

 **Mr. Insane** \- I never really considered how Pravin would react to the clones - I think he'd consider them to be his 'troops' and want to protect them as much as possible. I generally think that (outside of General Krell), the Jedi tried their best to make sure the clones were used effectively and without having them throw their lives away - and I'd expect Pravin to be similar.

A/N - I like this chapter and I think its a good one, content wise - I just think it breaks up the momentum of the story a bit too much. At least we'll have an action packed chapter coming up!

Anyways please enjoy the next chapter.

* * *

 **Chapter 52: Tiplee's Burden, Part Two**

 _I've been asked if I hope my son is a hero. I always answer, 'isn't that what every parent hopes for their offspring?'_

 _No one has yet to find a good response to that._

-Excerpt from 'My Son, the Jedi' by Donah and Robry Whitestar

* * *

Jedi Knight Tiplee waited until nightfall before she made her way into Bontha proper. She had ditched her speeder an hour or two ago, hiding it in an out of the way section of forest before making her way towards the city, taking care to avoid any living thing in her way to a city that was under siege.

It was easier than it should have been. People stayed at home these days, it seemed. Tiplee hadn't noticed many Ubrorans out for a casual stroll or even tending their little gardens that seemed to be commonplace. She found that to be profoundly sad. Ubrora had been a planet that was so peaceful, it almost had seemed to be untouched by the malaise by of the Republic as a whole was experiencing. But the war had changed that dramatically. Average Ubrorans seemed to spend as little time as possible outside of their homes, clearly hoping to avoid the harsh reality of the outdoors.

But Tiplee knew that they were close to changing all that. If they could just play their cards in the correct manner, and get a little luck...they could free Ubrora. But to do that, she needed the Padawans to play a crucial role. Whether they would be capable of it seemed to be up in the air. So her job would be to get the Padawans in the proper mindset for the challenges to come. Whatever it took.

With night having fallen, the streets of Bontha were pretty much deserted. Still, Tiplee took no chances, moving from shadow to shadow to evade detection. Some Jedi would have found that distressing, having to sneak around and using shadows to conceal themselves. They would say that the shadows were of the dark side and that Jedi did not skulk in the shadows.

Tiplee fervently disagreed. Light made shadows, not the darkness. And Jedi Knight Tiplee was a source of light.

Tiplee paused an an intersection, stretching out with her senses to see if she could detect anything in the close vicinity. With her natural senses amplified by the Force, she could hear the faintest sounds of metallic clinking. As she waited, she heard the clinking getting slightly louder, indicating that it was coming in her direction. Tiplee assumed that what she was hearing was a droid patrol heading in her direction. It could have been a merchant towing his battered speeder through the streets too, but it paid to be cautious.

Sensing...something coming, she slunk into the shadows, hiding behind what appeared to be a deserted office building. A minute or so later, her suspicions of a droid patrol had proved to be correct. The droids clinked and clanked their way through the intersection, not even paying the slightest of attention to where she was hiding. For a moment, she dabbled with the idea of destroying this patrol – it was only eight droids, and the fight would have been easy, given she had the element of surprise. But she wanted to keep her presence in this city a secret, for now. So she let them pass.

Tiplee made her way to her destination in the city without further incident. She paused outside of Lirri Boikana's former home. It was a nice house in the middle of a nice neighborhood, totally unremarkable, really. The only thing remarkable about it now were the two beings inside. Still, Tiplee surveyed the outside of the house briefly, just checking that no one was snooping around. Satisfied that there was nothing untowards going on, she rang the chime and waited for someone to answer.

After several long moments, the door finaly opened, revealing Sascha and Nara, their lightsabers in hand, their posture suggesting that they were ready to attack. When they realized who was on the other side, both Padawans relaxed, and put their lightsabers away, "Sorry, Master Tiplee, we are a little on edge," said Sascha.

"I think if you were being attacked, your attackers would not ring the chime."

Sascha smiled, but his smile seemed to merely die on his lips. Her Padawan barely seemed to notice her quip at all. "Come on in, Master Tiplee, we are very glad to see you," said Sascha.

Tiplee and the Padawans went to the main living room in the home, a cozy room with three or four good places to sit in, and one couch that looked like someone had been using as a bed. Nara and Sascha quietly sat beside each other on the remaining couch, while Tiplee decided to keep standing.

"Why are you here, Master Tiplee?" asked Nara.

Her Togruta apprentice looked like she was out of her mind with exhaustion. Her head-tails seemed to be drooping, and Nara looked like she was having trouble keeping her eyes open. Sascha didn't exactly look much better. There were deep bags under his eyes and it looked like he had been crying recently. Both Jedi were wearing robes that were not their own. Sascha's looked like a reasonable imitation of his usual charcoal gray robes. Nara's new robe was purple and red, but was marred but what looked like several burn marks. Given that Nara was usually sensitive to the way she looked, Tiplee was surprised that she hadn't ditched this old robe for a new one. Either Nara had stopped caring or hadn't noticed, neither of which were good indications as to her apprentice's mental state.

"I am here because you need me to be here."

"Oh," said Sascha.

"More specifically I'm here to give both of you a rest. Is there anything I need to know before you both go to sleep?"

Sascha briefly outlined some details of working with the resistance. Most of which she already knew. Then he bowed his head and made his way towards a couch that had clearly been functioning as Sascha's bed. "I think I need some help to go to sleep these days. My body is tired, but my brain is too...active."

Tiplee went to the side of the couch where Sascha was getting comfortable and once she was sure that he was comfortable, she smiled slightly, "I will help you with that." Even the barest suggestion of sleep was enough to send Sascha into a deep slumber. Even if she hadn't used a Force suggestion to compel him to sleep, she thought that Sascha might have fallen asleep anyways.

Usually when people slept, they looked peaceful. Sascha still looked exhausted. Motherly intuition took over and she brushed Sascha's hair and face gently, hoping to be able to give him some of the peace that he so obviously needed.

She did that for a few moments before she returned her attention to her apprentice. Nara seemed to still be half-asleep on the couch, her large eyes struggling to stay open for anything more than a few seconds at a time. Tiplee moved to sit next to her, but was surprised when Nara bounced off the couch to embrace her in a massive hug. Then, to her amazement, Nara put her head into her chest and started bawling her eyes out, crying almost uncontrollably. It was perhaps the biggest outpouring of emotion she'd ever experienced from her apprentice, who had always had a degree of reservation to her, she always had seemed to be holding something back. Whatever those reservations had been, they were gone now.

She returned the embrace, massaging Nara's back gently and she guided the two of them back to the couch. And maternal instincts took over. She continued comforting her apprentice, until her crying fit eased. Unintentionally, she found herself stroking her hand down Nara's rear lekku. Her apprentice had never let her touch her lekku, and she knew that that honor was supposed to be reserved to those closest to a Togruta. One she realized what she was doing, she stopped herself.

"Don't stop. It's okay," said Nara's muffled voice.

"...are you sure apprentice?"

"Please."

Tiplee put her hand back on Nara's rear lekku and continued to stroke it gently. Nara nestled herself so that her head could fit comfortably in the crook of her arm. Nara let out a sigh of contentment, "I missed you so much, Master."

"I missed you as well, Nara," she replied. Tiplee was amazed at how naturally she had spoken those words.

"Everything has gotten so bad, Master," Nara whispered. "So much pain...so much suffering...so much _loss_. It's...too much. Too much for me to take."

"It will all be over soon. You just need to rest now. You and Sascha will have a big role to play still. We are going to end this. One way or the other." Tiplee adjusted Nara so that she was laying perpendicular on the couch with the Togruta's head resting softly on her lap. It was odd to be able to...handle Nara like this. Her apprentice was such a brave girl and she never let herself be physically...controlled like this. Sure, she had cried on her shoulder before, after getting her heart broken by a boy or after a particularly stressful mission, but this was different. Nara's emotional defences, defences that she'd once assumed were so strong that no one could break through them, were completely and utterly down.

Fighting a war would do that, Tiplee supposed.

"I'm sorry about your friend Lirri," Tiplee said.

"It's so hard to believe that she is gone," said Nara quietly. "She was so full of life, now I'll never see her again."

"I'm sorry," she said again.

"All we can do is go on and honor her memory," her apprentice said softly.

She brushed a hand down one of Nara's front lekku, "That's right, Padawan. Our job remains incomplete." She glanced over at Sascha's comatose form, "How's Sascha doing?"

Nara finally sat up, and she looked at Sascha longingly, "Every time I think he's going to break or he's reached his limit, he proves me wrong and keeps going. I don't know how he got so strong. I always thought that I was stronger than him, just because I could beat him when we sparred. I guess I confused one sort of strength for another."

"His strength comes from his character. And from his friends."

Nara turned to look at her, "From me?"

Tiplee shrugged softly, "In a way. I haven't been around Sascha all that much, but from what I have seen of him and what Aurine tells me, he is defined by his friends, and he draws strength from them. Including you. Perhaps especially you."

The Togruta turned her attention back to her friend, "I never thought of it that way. I think part of the reason I'm still going is because I've had him around."

"You two do seem to have a connection." Tiplee observed that Nara was still staring at Sascha as he slept, "You want to go over and cuddle with him, don't you?"

Her apprentice didn't even bother to deny it. "Yes. But it's not because I want anything romantic from him, but because I feel safe around him. Everything around me has gone crazy, but Sascha's still there, still that same old person that he was before the mission. He's the one thing that continues to be somewhat normal, somewhat safe."

She gently brushed a single finger down Nara's cheek, "You can go and cuddle with him if you like. I wouldn't judge you for it. I don't think that he would mind the comfort as well."

Nara surprised her by shaking her head slightly, "I want to, but I won't. Because I know he wouldn't like that. Sascha's not big on physical contact. He thinks its weird when we even lay close to each other."

"You are finally putting other people's desires in front of your own. I'm impressed."

Nara closed her eyes again and relaxed, settling her head back into her lap, "I think I've learned a lot about myself over the past few weeks."

"I'm glad to hear it, though I wish the circumstances were different."

"So do I."

"You should rest now," Tiplee said. "Would you prefer a healing trance or sleep?" The unspoken question was if Nara wanted to be able to dream. Sleep might present her with a dream, or a nightmare. A healing trance would not.

"I'll just sleep," Nara said, "But I'd like to talk to you first."

Tiplee blinked, not expecting that response, "Whatever you want to talk about, we'll talk about, Nara."

Nara's big eyes opened for a moment, "Thank you, Master." Her eyes then drifted closed again, "I wanted to tell you that I told Sascha about my parents. I...showed him the memory of me being taken away from them."

Tiplee couldn't keep the shock out of her voice, "You haven't even shared that memory with me. Or even the details." Tiplee had been made aware of Nara's slightly unorthodox path to the Jedi Temple, where her parents, instead of turning over their Force sensitive child to the Jedi at the usual age, had fled Shili and tried to keep their child from being taken from them. Only after several years on the lam, a Jedi Knight on an unrelated mission had detected a strong presence in the Force and had gone to investigate, finding the now five-year-old Nara Nalto and family trying to rebuild their lives. Tired of running, this time Nara's parents had agreed to give up their daughter.

"Sorry. I'd share the memory with you right now but," Nara yawned and stretched out before sinking back into the couch and her lap, "I'm too tired to do it."

Tiplee brushed her apprentice's face lightly, "That is okay, my apprentice. Why did you choose to share that memory with Sascha? What was his reaction?"

"I showed it to him...that night after Lirri died. I just wanted him to know where I came from, to know why I was the way I was. What is it that Sascha always says? Oh yeah, 'Pain shared is not pain doubled, but pain halved.' I now know that is true."

"Did he say anything?"

"He was...emotional about being showed that memory. I mean, the memory itself is emotional and Sascha's well.. he's an emotional person. He actually cried," she said, smiling slightly. "I was always afraid if anyone knew about me, that they'd look at me differently. Now I know that I was wrong." She opened her eyes and glanced up at her, "You knew, didn't you?"

"I would be a very bad Master if I didn't know," she replied. "I knew that your past was part of the reason that you that is why you are so reserved and had trouble making friends. That is why I have been so supportive of your friendship with Sascha. That, and I believe that you two will be working together for many more years to come. You two are a perfect team. Together you are balance."

Nara laughed bitterly, "That's ironic, because I almost killed him yesterday."

"How exactly did you manage that?" she said, alarm in her voice.

Nara sat up and rested her head on her shoulder, "I...kind of had a mental breakdown yesterday."

"And..."

The Togruta was silent for a couple of long moments, and Tiplee had to check and see if Nara had fallen asleep. She hadn't. She simply appeared to be collecting her thoughts. "I have this reoccurring nightmare," started Nara, "Based off the day I was taken away from my parents. There's this faceless Jedi that takes me away from my family and I can't stop it, no matter what I do – I'm powerless."

"That sounds...emotionally charged." _To say the least_.

"It is. Or maybe I should say it was."

"Was?"

Nara shifted slightly, "Yesterday I sort of had a mental breakdown after a battle. I started re-living my nightmare and I...don't think I was ever going to escape it. I was going to be trapped forever. That's when Sascha came along. He scooped me up and brought me back here. I guess I wasn't responding to him. He tried everything to get me to react...I think he even slapped me at one point. But I was...just gone."

Tiplee could hardly get her mind around these revelations, but something came to mind when she mentioned Sascha, "He tried to call me yesterday, he didn't get through as I busy. I suppose he was trying to call and tell me what was happening."

Nara nodded, "I think so."

"Continue with the story, my apprentice," Tiplee said, as she softly caressed Nara's face, giving her the emotional support to continue to tell her tale.

Nara closed her eyes and continued, "So, the story, as Sascha tells it, is that he couldn't get me to respond, so he used the Force and entered my mind."

Tiplee stopped brushing the Togruta's face, "Sascha did what!?"

Nara's big blue eyes opened, "He only did what he thought was right."

"Invading someone's privacy like that is not an action that any Jedi should take, unless it is the absolute last option," she said stiffly. "I will have a talk with Sascha about his actions."

Nara gripped her left arm firmly, "Listen to the rest of the story before you make a decision."

"You...approve of his actions?"

"I would have done the same," Nara said quietly but defiantly.

"Would you?"

"He tried contacting both you and his Master. What would you have him do, Master? Do nothing? He had no idea if I was hurt, if I was fading away. Non-action is an action too, Master."

"It was a difficult situation," said Tiplee, choosing her words carefully. "I would just hope that he made that decision not through fear or desperation, but dispassionately."

"It worked," said Nara quietly, closing her eyes again. "I'm here, having this discussion with you because of him. Take that for what it is worth."

Tiplee was deeply uneasy with what Padawan Whitestar had done, but that was proving to be a battle for a different day. "Why don't you continue with your story?"

The Togruta nodded, "So Sascha joins with me in my mind, and he got sucked into the nightmare too. I guess that Sascha finally managed to wake me up, but when I was awoken, I still thought I was in my nightmare. So I attacked Sascha, because I thought he was the Jedi that was taking me away from my family. So I tried to choke him to death."

Tiplee looked at Sascha. Now that she knew what she was looking for, she could see the signs of blunt force applied to Sascha's neck – the bruising had mostly faded, but it was still there. "You weren't holding anything back," she observed.

"No. I wasn't. I thought I was attacking the Jedi that had taken me away from my family…but I was only attacking my best friend." Nara shook her head slightly, "I wasn't myself, but I'm still ashamed of what I did."

Ashamed didn't really seem to be an adequate word. Nara had clearly been close to killing another apprentice – in the Temple that would have rated an administrative hearing at the very least. And probably expulsion. Out here…the rules were somewhat different. "What made you stop? Did you pull yourself out of it?"

Nara shifted uncomfortably, "Not really. Sascha was apparently able to press a thought into my mind as I was…killing him. What he said snapped me out of it."

"What did he say?"

"He…managed to get me to see that he was my family. That I lost my biological family, but gained another one in the Jedi."

"And that worked?" she asked.

"Yeah. It snapped me out of my nightmare. Just in time too. So I would say it worked."

Tiplee needed about an hour and a good stiff drink to help her take in these revelations. She had always known that there had been some trauma in Nara's past, but she hadn't expected something at the level that Nara was describing. She had also assumed that Nara would eventually confide in her and that they would both work together to solve the problem. She had apparently misread that situation. But it looked like it hadn't turned out too badly, despite the fact that she had almost killed Sascha. She'd probably like to talk through Nara's past more thoroughly, but it clearly wasn't the time for that talk.

"What happened afterwards with Sascha?" she asked.

"We...talked. I apologized for what I did. He forgave me...somehow. Then I went back into my nightmare, and I brought Sascha along with me."

"That does not strike me as a good idea."

Nara nodded in assent, "It probably wasn't. But we did it."

"And how did it go?"

Nara shrugged softly, "It went well. It wasn't a nightmare anymore. For the first time, I was in control of what was happening in front of me. I said goodbye to my parents and my sister. I told them that I loved them and they told me that they loved me in return." Nara's eyes glistened with tears, "I guess I had always wanted the chance to show my parents what I had become. I had always wanted their affection, but I realize now, that the affection that I wanted, the praise I really wanted was from you, Master Tiplee."

"And from Sascha, Aurine and the other Jedi," Tiplee said.

"Exactly. I want to be a real part of a family again. The Jedi Order."

Tiplee was getting choked up by the emotion of the moment, and she cradled Nara's head lightly in her arms. Nara, the fierce young woman, the Padawan that she had chosen to be hers, a person that was, for all intents and purposes her daughter was essentially admitting that she had replaced her biological mother in her life. She had never felt closer to Nara than at this very moment. "You will always have a place with me, Nara."

Nara's big blue eyes blinked, "I know, Master. I think I always knew. But I'm finally able to see it, to accept it. I was caught up in the past ever since that day I joined the Jedi Order. Now, I'm finally able to put that behind me, and be the person I was meant to be. The Jedi I was meant to be."

"I believe that the Jedi that you will become will be truly special indeed."

"Thank you Master. But I don't want to be special. I just want to be me."

"That is the key to becoming a true Jedi Knight, my Padawan. Only when you find inner balance can you start trying to bring balance to the rest of the galaxy."

"Oh," said Nara, her eyes glazing over as she considered her statement. "I guess I should have known that. That this was the first lesson that I truly enjoyed learning. I may die on Ubrora. But I'll die knowing who I am."

"You will not die here on Ubrora," she said vehemently.

"Really?"

"I will not let you fall," said Tiplee. And she meant it.

"It's not your place to decide my fate, Master," said Nara as she closed her eyes. "If I am fated to never leave this planet, I accept it."

Those were not the words of a young woman that was broken, it was more like the words of a young woman who was just finding her voice in the wider world. It was truly amazing to see the transformation that Nara had made over her time on Ubrora, it was as if Nara had simply skipped her teenaged years and become a young adult. And while she could hardly claim to have been the sole reason for the change, she was glad for it.

Tiplee patted Nara's head softly, "In some ways I'm glad to hear you say that. But it is not your fate to die here. Or anytime soon."

"And your sure of that?"

"Sure? Maybe not. Confident. Yes."

"What can I do to help?"

Tiplee smiled, "Right now? Sleep."

"Oh," said Nara, who shifted her position again, "I guess we just wasted a lot of time talking."

"That time was not wasted, my apprentice."

"Sorry, you are right. It was a good talk."

Tiplee patted Nara's cheek softly, "I'll take you to your room."

Nara nodded, "Okay. Thanks, Master."

Tiplee had expected Nara to object to being carried to her room, but Nara was clearly both exhausted and willing to let herself be handled in a motherly fashion. She stood, from the couch and then picked up Nara's prone form from the couch, carefully cradling the Togruta's head and settling it into the crook of her arm. She walked slowly up the stairs and to Nara's room, thankful for the fact that although Nara was a strong warrior, she was a rather thin girl. Once inside, she laid Nara onto her bed, and pulled the covers up.

With Nara already softly snoring in her bed, Tiplee leaned down and kissed the Togruta lightly on the forehead, "Goodnight, my child," she whispered.


	53. Chapter 53: Vox Populi

**Lord Darth Yoda** \- I think that all four Jedi could use a long vacation after this is over. I do think that there has been some damage done to the Aurine-Sascha relationship, but nothing that cannot be repaired. We'll see if Nara make it out of this book alive - her death would certainly have a huge impact on Sascha.

 **Mr. Insane** \- The good news is that I can't pull a Westworld twist...because I haven't seen Westworld! Shame on me, I know.

A/N - Feels like its been a while since we've had an action chapter (fortunately this is one!)

Also wanted to note that this week's Star Wars Rebels was _fantastic_. And there's a certain irony that this chapter features a Mandalorian v. Jedi confrontation.

Anyways, all reviews, follows, and favourites are deeply appreciated as always.

Please enjoy the next chapter

* * *

 **Chapter 53: Vox Populi  
**

 _Will we watch the news and setup an alert for any news regarding our son? I don't think we will. It's not an indication of a lack of interest in our child, but we have to accept that our son's destiny has separated from ours. Our focus will have to be on our family, wounded as it will be._

 _But our wound will heal. We hope._

-Excerpt from 'My Son, the Jedi' by Donah and Robry Whitestar

* * *

In the morning, Tiplee left the two sleeping Padawans alone in Lirri's old house to find what was left of the resistance in Bontha. She wasn't particularly optimistic about numbers. The resistances' losses had been heavy and the loss of Lirri Boikana had likely destroyed the morale of anyone who was left. However she knew that some of the Ubroran Rangers had survived yesterday's disastrous attack, and they could be counted on to at least form the backbone of a squad that could inflict damage.

All she needed to do today was to convince whoever was commanding the droid army that the resistance in this city was still going strong so that whoever was commanding couldn't move troops from Bontha and link them up with its main force. And she had to protect one particular building too...

But that was getting ahead of herself, she needed to stay focused on this moment. Tiplee made contact with Arslan Ivalice, now the unofficial and official head of the resistance, and inquired as to where the resistance headquarters was now located. It turned out that it was now based out of an abandoned warehouse deep in the suburbs of Bontha. Despite getting instructions from Arslan, she was only able to find it because there happened to be a guard trying to be unobtrusive just out front of the building.

Tiplee emerged from the shadows of the morning, putting her hands up and walking slowly towards the guard. The Ubroran guard startled when he saw her, but quickly realized who she was. A few moments later and she was inside. There were about ten Ubrorans in the cavernous, poorly-lit warehouse. A group of about four Ubrorans were playing what appeared to be some sort of game that involved throwing what appeared to be some sort of gambling cube. Another group of Ubrorans were talking quietly, their manner subdued. And in the middle of the room were Arslan Ivalice, Ovans and Sekac. The leadership of the resistance.

Tiplee strode confidently towards the three Ubroran leaders, projecting an air of confidence. Unfortunately it seemed to be rather lost of the three Ubrorans who greeted her with subdued nods. "You know who I am?" she asked the group.

"General Jedi Master Tiplee," said Ovans dismissively. "I assume you are here to take your Padawans with you."

"You assume wrong," she said mildly. "I'm here to help."

Ovans snorted, "Well we could have used your help a few weeks ago. The resistance here is shattered, in case you can't tell."

"It is not shattered," said Arslan.

Ovans exploded in a fit of rage, "It's all good for you to say that Arslan! You never take up a rifle, and fight the droids. You just sit in the back and watch us all risk our lives! So you don't have the right to tell me what the resistance is!" He pointed at his chest, "Because I know!"

This was usually where Tiplee would have interceded, but she saw Arslan puffing himself up to make a response and decided it was best for the Ubrorans to hash it out themselves.

Arslan calmly walked over to Ovans and unleashed a verbal tirade, "You think _I_ haven't lost anything? Who do you think recruited all these people, Ovans? It was _me!_ And who do you think goes to their grieving families when they are looking for someone to blame that their son or daughter is dead? That's right Ovans, it's me too! And do you know who has called in every favour that he is owed, tarnished the professional reputation that he's worked his entire life to build, all for this resistance?" Arslan let the question linger unanswered in the air for a moment before continuing in a quiet tone, "I don't bleed for the resistance, that is true. But don't tell me that I don't have a say in what it is. Don't tell me what I've helped build is shattered."

Ovans bowed his head slightly, "I'm sorry Arslan. I shouldn't have said that."

"No. You shouldn't have."

Tiplee shuffled forward, intent on getting the conversation away from the current topic, but before she could speak, one of the other Ubrorans in a corner of the room spoke up in an urgent tone, "I see a big detachment of droids moving out across the city. It's got Coren Vox leading it."

Tiplee perked up when she heard that piece of information. She strode over to the Ubroran who had spoken. The young Ubroran was monitoring a variety of feeds on three different datapads. Clearly he was using the cameras of various civilian Ubrorans to keep a general tab on this approaching contingent of droids. An innovative solution to an age old problem. "Where are they going?" Tiplee asked, as Arslan and Ovans gathered around.

"I don't know," the young Ubroran said as his eyes flickered from screen to screen, trying to get a better sense of where the droids were going.

"Well, a better question might be how many of them are in this detachment," mused Ovans.

"I don't understand what they are doing," said Arslan. "They're marching towards the residential districts, there isn't anything there... we moved everyone in the resistance out into the suburbs...they know this as much as we do..."

Tiplee watched on one of the screens as the droids marched determinedly down the roadway. All of the streets looked the same to her, she simply hadn't had enough time in the city to get used to the terrain. Her eyes switched to another screen the showed the droids again, this time passing a fountain. Funny, she had seen one just like it this morning...

A jolt went up Tiplee's spine. "I know where they are going. They are going after the Padawans!"

Arslan immediately went into action mode, "Check their route, confirm that they are heading for Lirri's...house."

Tiplee wasn't going to wait for Arslan and company to figure it out. She was sure that this was where Coren Vox was going. It was just his style to ignore all the rules of civilized combat and go right for your weakness. She headed for the door.

"Master Jedi, where are you going?" asked Ovans. "We need some time to gather up our forces, they are rather scattered at the moment."

Tiplee paused in the doorway, "There is no time. Gather what troops you can and head for Lirri's house. I'll try to slow Coren Vox down."

"Good luck, Master Jedi," said Arslan.

The Rishati opened the door and started sprinting immediately. During her sprint, she concentrated, dropping into the Force and using it to open up her connection to her Padawan.

 _Wake up, Padawan._

Judging from the confused reaction that she received from Nara, she had just woken her apprentice up from her sleep. While the mental connection she had with Nara didn't exactly give her the ability to pass her complex ideas, she was able to portray emotions. And the emotion she conveyed to Nara was: _Warning, Danger_.

The Togruta seemed to become slightly more awake as her warning was conveyed to her. While Tiplee could have used her comlink to call her apprentice, there was no guarantee that her call would have been answered, considering how deeply both Padawans had been sleeping. Tiplee received an unspoken confirmation that told her that Nara was waking Sascha and getting prepared.

Tiplee continued her way back to Lirri's home, recalling every single encounter she'd had with Coren Vox. It all had started when she and her sister Tiplar had been assigned by the Council to hunt down the wanted criminal. She had thought that it would have been a reasonably simple assignment, but she had wound up chasing Coren and his cronies over a half dozen planets. The Mandalorian had shown an unexpected cunning, almost managing to throw her and Tiplar off his scent on more than a couple occasions. Only some lucky breaks and some dogged detective work had lead them to Coren's hideout.

Her and Tiplar had been expecting an ambush when they had arrived at Coren's hiding spot and the Mandalorian hadn't disappointed, almost managing to shoot down their craft before they had even arrived. She and her sister had managed to crash land, but it had been an auspicious start to what would be a long, drawn-out fight.

Coren had used the unfamiliar terrain against the Jedi, keeping them slowed down with a wide variety of traps and ambushes. She and Tiplar each came close to death – Tiplar had been almost evaporated by a plasma grenade that she had just barely managed to scamper away from. For her part, she had almost stepped on a well-hidden pressure mine, only her quick reactions and a late warning from the Force had saved her from certain death. She'd taken some shrapnel to her arms and midsection for her troubles, however.

When finally Coren and his compatriots had emerged to fight the two worn-down Jedi, the confidence of the Mandalorian and his supporters had been high. And against ordinary opposition, they'd have been right to be confident. Unfortunately, they were fighting Jedi. And not Jedi Padawans, but two Jedi sisters who had tons of experience fighting by each other's side.

The fight had one of the most brutal of her career. First she and Tiplar had focused on subduing Coren's friends. Coren's supporters were disciplined, but no match for two Jedi. Eventually, Tiplar managed to corner and subdue Coren, or so she thought. Tiplee remembered watching as her sister dragged the beaten Mandalorian out into the midday sun. She had been so proud of her sister, so happy to see them succeed together after such an arduous mission.

And then she'd nearly seen her sister die.

Coren Vox had been playing dead. Quick like a nexu, Coren had grabbed a knife from somewhere in his armor and stabbed Tiplar right across the stomach. Had her sister not twisted out of the way at the very last moment, Coren's knife would have gutted her terribly. Tiplee had rushed over to Coren and knocked him into unconsciousness, one of the few times in her life that she had ever felt rage. Her sister, though wounded, had been able to survive until medical help had arrived. It had a lesson for both of them, warning them of the dangers of their own attachments – and to never, ever let their guard down.

So Tiplee knew that Coren was dangerous. And she knew that Coren would be looking for revenge against the Jedi, and specifically any Jedi connected to her and her sister. And yet she had left her Padawan alone, unprotected, in a city where Coren Vox roamed free.

"You are an _idiot_ , Tiplee," she muttered under her breath.

She had assumed that Coren didn't know where her Padawan was, but she had apparently assumed wrong. Once again, Coren Vox was managing to get her to dance to his tune. It very much annoyed her to do so.

After minutes of flat-out sprinting, she finally got within view of Lirri's house. Unfortunately, that was when the detachment of the droid army came into view. Tiplee threw herself into cover behind a nearby house, peaking around the corner when she thought it was safe to do so. A full detachment of droids, probably thirty or so, were accompanied by one Mandalorian warrior, and one large, imposing battle tank.

Not exactly a force that she could take on her own. It wasn't the number of droids that intimidated her, it was the knowledge that Coren wasn't the type to attack without overwhelming force. So where were the rest of his forces? Set in a trap for her, perhaps? No. That didn't make sense. Few knew she was even in the city. Then the truth finally dawned on her.

He's setting a trap for the resistance.

Putting the two Padawans in obvious danger was just about the only thing that could galvanize the scraps of the resistance together and make them fight. It dawned on Tiplee that she had just told Arslan to gather what resistance forces he could and meet her at Lirri's house.

Once again, Tiplee was falling into a trap set by Coren Vox.

But this time she wasn't going to be trapped. Quietly, she removed her comlink from her pocket and dialed Arslan.

"Arslan here, Master Jedi, we are just ready to head out."

"Stay there, Arslan. It's a trap," she said calmly.

There was confusion in Arslan's voice, "Are you sure, Master Jedi?"

"Yes," answered Tiplee. "If Coren had wanted to kill the Padawans, he would have gotten his tank to hit Lirri's house from afar. Yet he hasn't. He's trying to lure you into a trap. Don't oblige him."

"Aren't the Padawans still in danger?"

"Yes," she said bluntly. "But I'll deal with that."

"If you say so, Master Jedi. We await your orders."

Tiplee turned off her comlink and peered around the corner again. The droids were taking great care in surrounding Lirri's house. The battle tank was positioning itself to fire directly into the house. Coren was pacing out in front of the tank and began to speak though an amplified speaker that Tiplee couldn't see, "Sascha Whitestar and Nara Nalto, you are under arrest," Coren said lazily. "You have one minute to surrender yourself peacefully. Otherwise we will open fire."

Tiplee hid behind the wall again and opened her connection in the Force to her Padawan. This time when she contacted Nara, she was clearly awake. Nara was obviously apprehensive, and was clearly waiting for orders. Tiplee formed one clear thought and pushed it through the connection:

 _Fight._

The Nara Nalto of a few months ago would have greeted that idea with relish. The current version of Nara Nalto simply wearily acknowledged her order. Part of her was sad to see her rambunctious apprentice grow up so quickly. Part of her was grateful for this new maturity.

Tiplee got herself ready for the fight, knowing that she would have to be the primary target because she knew that Sascha and her Padawan were essentially spent. Tiplee gripped her lightsaber tightly and waited for her moment.

The minute that Coren had given the Padawans expired without any response from the two young Jedi. The tall Mandalorian, as imposing as ever in his black, red and gray armor, shrugged, "Open fire."

That was when the battle started.

Tiplee saw Sascha and Nara, lightsabers ignited, leap out of the second floor window just as the battle tank opened fire. The shot from the tank just about leveled the top half of Lirri's house, but the Padawans had escaped before the damage could be done, landing awkwardly on the ground below. Sascha in particular seemed to land awkwardly, twisting his knee slightly on his landing. The two Padawans quickly scampered for cover.

The Jedi Knight knew that the most important thing to do in the battle was to neutralize that battle tank. Coren was dangerous, obviously, but he was a threat that the Padawans could handle for a short period of time. What they were going to have trouble with was dealing with a battle tank and supporting forces in an open area, where the tank would be free to rain down fire from distance with impunity.

She could try and rush the tank and use her lightsaber to disable the tank's main weaponry, but that was dangerous and it would take time. There was another way to deal with the tank. Stretching out with the Force, she searched for the main gun barrel of the tank and waited for the teltale signs that it was about to fire.

Tiplee was too slow the first time, and the tank fired and missed, causing the two Padawans to scatter from the incoming barage. The next time the tank fired, Tiplee was ready. It was a technique that she had perfected on her raids with the Ubroran Rangers, but it had to be done with impecable timing for it to work. She closed her eyes, felt the tank preparing to fire, and then on the exact moment the tank did fire, Tiplee reached out with the Force and crimped the barrel of the tank closed.

It was a difficult thing to do, using the Force to crimp solid durasteel like that. While you could use the Force to do almost anything, making something as solid as the material that went into building battle tanks do your bidding was in a word, difficult. That was not to say impossible. Because with the Force, anything was possible.

For anyone watching the battle, it would have seemed as if the battle tank simply exploded. The explosion itself decapitated a nearby battledroid and a piece of the tank nearly hit Coren Vox as an added benefit. Unfortunately, it missed him by a few feet. Feeling lightheaded at making such an exertion through the Force, Tiplee took a few long, deep, recovery breaths before launching herself into the fray.

As Tiplee sprinted towards the fray, she wasn't really surprised to discover that Coren Vox had retreated on his jetpack, getting away from the main engagement now that his tank had been summarily demolished. The two Padawans had used their reprieve well and were slowly advancing in tandem towards the remaining droids, deflecting the incoming fire less with skill and more with gritty determination.

Completing the flank, Tiplee raced into the battle. Caught between an onrushing Jedi Knight and a pair of slowly advancing Padawans, the battle droids were between two equally unappealing options, and without Coren there to direct them, they simply stood their ground and were annihilated.

Tiplee went around and made sure that the droids were well and truly disabled while the Padawans kept a wary eye on Coren Vox, who decided that discretion was the better part of valour and retreated from view.

"Should we...chase after him, Master?" asked Nara.

"No, in fact we are going to retreat."

"Uh. Okay, Master Tiplee. But we won," said Sascha, who was rubbing at his knee, clearly he had tweaked it somehow.

Tiplee shook her head, "No, Coren Vox is laying a trap for us. He was trying to lure the resistance to come and fight him. He'll be calling for his reinforcements any moment now. We have to go."

Sascha looked back at the smoldering wreckage of Lirri's house, "Can we maybe just look for some of Lirri's things...I'd like to see what we could find, so we could give it to her family." Nara nodded her agreement with her friend's words.

Tiplee wavered. They really should be going. Coren Vox knew where they were and he was likely to be calling for reinforcements at this very moment. But clearly Lirri had meant something to her apprentice and to deny them the chance to find a memento would be cruel. "All right, but be quick about it. I'll stand guard."

The Padawans noded and jogged back to where Lirri's house was. There were parts of the building that were still on fire, but the building itself seemed to be fine, structurally speaking. As the two younger Jedi padded about carefully, Tiplee kept watch. There were a couple of Ubrorans that emerged from their homes to see what the fuss was about, but they kept well away from her, seeming content to just watch it all unfold, like viewers to a particularly juicy Holonet drama.

After a couple of minutes of rummaging around in the remains of Lirri's house, Tiplee looked over to see Nara and Sascha were heading back with a handful of momentos that had survived the battle. Both Padawans looked somber, and worn out. They had almost reached her side when Tiplee's danger sense flickered on. Tiplee did the only thing she could, she dove for what her senses identified as 'safety.'

And none too soon, because a missile strike landed in the spot where she had just been standing, a small crater now marking its landing point. Tiplee took one glance to check if Nara and Sascha were okay. Nara and Sascha had made similar dives for safety, and come out reletively unharmed, though the mementos they had been carrying could not say the same.

Coren had returned. And this time he had brought some of his friends. Instead of one Mandalorian, now there were four. All with slightly different shades of armor, but all dangerous, skilled warriors, all with jetpacks and blaster rifles. They stood on the nearby rooftops and opened fire on the Jedi with their blaster rifles.

Tiplee ignited her lightsaber just in time to be able to deflect the incoming fire. She spared a quick look towards the Padawans, "Go! Run! They'll be more droids coming!"

"But what about you, Master?" asked Nara.

"I'll be fine," Tiplee lied as she batted away a fusillade of incoming fire. The problem with Mandalorians was that they were smart. Most beings fired at her chest, because that was how they were trained – aim at the largest section of a person's body. Mandos were different; they knew to vary their fire, to not aim at the same place twice. It made deflecting the incoming fire a lot harder, despite the small number of attackers.

Nara and Sascha wavered and then ran, doing a fair job of accomplishing a fighting retreat.

Coren wasn't going to have any of it though, gesturing to two of his Mandalorian compatriots to go and cut off the Padawans from escape. In normal circumstances, she figured that Nara and Sascha could handle two Mandalorians. Now, she knew that both Padawans were too fatigued to fight such experienced opponents.

Tiplee interceded, the only way she knew how. Using the Force, she grabbed some of the wreckage from Lirri's house and flung it at the two Mandalorians, which were using their jetpacks to get after Nara and Sascha. The first Mandalorian managed to see a chunk of the roof coming for him and dove out of the way. The second Mandalorian was not quite so fortunate. A piece of what appeared to be a duracrete-like material colided with the flying mercenary, driving him off course and slamming him headfirst into the side of a nearby house. While the mercenary's armour was probably enough to prevent the collision from being fatal, Tiplee was sure that the Mandalorian would be out of the fight for now.

Tiplee turned her attention towards her current predicament, which was that she had two very disciplined, very dangerous Mandalorians firing at her. The two Mandalorians were gradually drifting away from the other, allowing themselves to fire at her from wider angles. With the Mandalorians above her, using the roofs of the nearby houses to fire down at her and keep themselves from being hit by the blaster bolts that she was attempting to direct at them, she had little way of striking back. In short, Coren Vox had all the advantages.

Tiplee's danger sense went off and she dove to her right instinctively. It was very fortunate that she did, as a small missile landed where she had been standing. The missile had come so close to hitting her, that the pebbles that the missle had kicked up when it went off pelted her body. Tiplee quickly glanced at where the missile had come from. It was the third Mandalorian, who had evidently given up trying to fight the two Padawans. Which was good for them, as they could now easily escape, but it was bad for her as now she was outnumbered three to one.

Deciding that it was time to accept that she was outmatched in this particular battle, she scurried back to her feet and dashed down the nearest street. Tiplee turned off her lightsaber and dodged the incoming fire by pure agility, jinking and juking as she ran. It went okay at first, but trying to outrun Mandalorians with jetpacks ended up being a fruitless endeavor. Another missile landed just to her left and the resulting explosion knocked her off her feet and on to all fours.

Twirling, she re-ignited her lightsaber to intercept the incoming blaster fire. But that one moment had been enough for her opponents to take advantage. The Mandalorian's fire kept pressing her backwards further and further. Any further back she'd be up against the nearby wall, and Coren Vox could take his time finishing her off. Tiplee racked her brain for a solution to her predicament. In a moment, she'd have to try a desperate attack. But it was easier said than done, when facing three jetpack wielding attackers who could simply fly away.

Tiplee parried another couple of blaster bolts and started wondering what was going to happen when the Mandalorians got in range to use their flamethrowers. Tiplee hadn't put much thought into how she wanted to die, but being cooked alive was suddenly very low on her list of ways to die. That meant, thought Tiplee grimly, that it was time to try a last ditch, and likely suicidal attack. The idea that Coren Vox was going to be the death of her was extremely annoying, but it had a sort of irony to it that she appreciated. Tiplee took a deep breath and prepared to charge.

Her plans changed in an instant as the Mandalorian on her left was suddenly being pushed by what appeared to be an invisible gust of wind. That unfortunate Mandalorian hit a nearby wall, grunted and stayed down. She glanced to her right for a moment to see Sascha and Nara stoically marching down the road to help her. Now with an avenue to escape, Tiplee bolted towards the Padawans. Coren and the remaining upright Mandalorian's fire missed her by centimeters.

Once she reached the Padawans she turned and faced down Coren and his one remaining Mandalorian henchmen. It was a standoff. Neither side seemed particularly interested in continuing hostilities. Tiplee and the Padawans were rather exhausted, and Coren was down to just one Mandalorian helper, with the other Mandalorian drunkenly picking himself off the ground. All Tiplee wanted to do was retreat, but she couldn't make it too obvious, because if she did, Coren and his pals would just harass them as they went.

Fortunately, Coren didn't seem to be too eager to continue to fight. "Well fought, Jedi," he said grudgingly.

"My name is Tiplee. You should be aware of that by now."

Coren ignored her, "The war for Ubrora is already over, Jedi. You lost. All that's left is the final accounting." Coren tossed her a two-fingered salute, before using his jetpack to fly away, his Mandalorian followers right behind him.

Tiplee hissed in Coren's general direction before turning her attention to the two Padawans. Nara was assisting Sascha, supporting him while he tried to put weight on his left leg. Nara had a small gash that was bleeding from just above her left eye and blood was slowly trickling down her face. Both Padawans were obviously banged up and in no shape to fight any further.

"You should have run, like I told you to," she admonished the Padawans.

Nara shrugged, "Probably. But you're welcome, Master."

Tiplee bowed her head in acknowledgement, "Thank you for coming back."

"Always, Master," said Nara.

Tiplee gently grabbed Nara and pulled her into an embrace. Nara didn't resist, but had to pull Sascha into the embrace as well, just to keep him on his feet. After a moment, Tiplee pushed them both away.

"What next," asked Sascha.

Tiplee smiled slightly. It was time to put the next stage of her and Aurine's plan into motion. "Come Padawans, I have something to show you."


	54. Chapter 54: Setting the Stage

**Lord Darth Yoda** \- You can assume that Coren either a) tortured the information out of someone in the resistance or b) was able to figure it out using those pesky cameras that all Ubrorans are wearing. It's a solid question though.

 **Speechbubbleme** \- It was the first episode of Rebels that I immediately re-watched. I've probably seen the ending scene with Sabine like 10 times since. Great, great episode.

 **caveydude** \- Thanks! Wasn't sure if they were going to be of use, but I think it's a good way to, as you said, tug at the heartstrings.

 **thejoker122 -** All will be made clear in this chapter (I hope)

A/N -We're on the homestretch now (finally). The conclusion will be in several parts, which should all hopefully keep you all in suspense. Looking forward to concluding this one!

Anyways, all reviews, follows, and favourites are deeply appreciated as always.

Please enjoy the next chapter

* * *

 **Chapter 54: Setting the Stage**

 _They say that a bond between a parent and their child cannot be broken._

 _I am not looking forward to finding out if that is true._

-Excerpt from 'My Son, the Jedi' by Donah and Robry Whitestar

* * *

Pravin Ecalt paced pensively in his command centre, well behind the front lines. Though he was an experienced military officer, he had never quite gotten used to the calm before the battle. He doubted that he was the only person that felt similarly. There nerves that he was feeling made him feel like he was always dancing on a bed of needles and he could never get his brain to calm down for more than one moment at a time. There was just so much to process, so much to be nervous about.

The plan that he and the Jedi had put into place was almost ready to be put into action and he was increasingly apprehensive about it. Not that it wasn't a good plan, because it was, but because there were so many variables in play and he would have to be the one that adapted to them. The fate of Ubrora may end up in his hands, and not in the way he would have expected it to be a few weeks ago.

Pravin turned and leaned over the table which displayed a readout of the current tactical situation. The Ubroran army, his forces, had chosen to make a stand just outside of the last city that they controlled, Wingke. The droid army had been in something of a holding pattern since he had left, but was now marching towards Koza Base where President Mollek had been hiding since the start of the war. It would arrive within a day. It was a fortunate break, really, because the decision had finally been made. The Uboran army was going to fight. Terrain was in their favour at least. The Aqir river ran wide and deep just before the Koza Base and it was the perfect spot to stand and fight because the river crossing would make the droids vulnerable to attack.

Even better for the defenders was that because Coren Vox was turning out to be a rather a naive commander, he had ignored his flanks. So Pravin had snuck in two sizeable flanking forces into the forests on either side of the droid army, each of which would be led by a Jedi Knight. So once the droid army got stuck in, trying to dislodge the defenders of the Aqir river and the two bridges that led across it, the flanking forces would be unleashed on the droid army, hopefully taking it unawares and giving the Ubroran army the best possible terms to fight on. It was going to be an upward struggle by any definition, but it might work. It would _have_ to work.

A lot of their success hinged on his father bringing a fleet in to keep the _Reprisal_ and its droid fighters busy. The Ubroran Starfighters had gradually been worn down, and were operating at less than half of their usual strength. If, for whatever reason, his father did not show up at the appointed time, then he doubted if the _Sarkiss_ class fighters of the Uborans could keep the droid fighters from wrecking havoc on the Ubroran army.

But they were going to roll the dice, because there wasn't really a better option. There was simply not going to be a better time to fight.

Pravin, for the first time in his life, really wished that he was on the front lines with his troops, but that was a job for a Colonel, not someone who had overall command of an entire battle. The fate of Ubrora laid in his hands, and not for the first time, he considered the irony of that fact.

Pravin looked at his table again. Like his childhood, he had arrayed his toys for battle, using markers to outline the position of the armies. Only this time, he wished for a magical way to take the piece off the table peacefully, instead of engaging them in battle. "The difference between a man and a child," he muttered to himself. Before he had defected, he'd been a child, afraid to take control of his own life, bowing to whatever person with a higher rank gave him an order. Now he was a man, finally making his own decisions. His life as a man may end up being rather short, but he was glad to have experienced this evolution in his life.

A quiet voice from behind him interrupted his musings. "General? It's five minutes until the check-in time."

Five minutes until his father came. Or didn't. Only the fate of a planet was in the balance. Just your average day. "I'll be right there."

There was silence for a few seconds before the same voice spoke, "General?"

Pravin turned, the voice belonged to Hatir, a Ubroran that had been wounded in one of the first forays against the army but was determined to play his part in the effort started contacting the various teams in the field. The fact that he had been in charge of the forces that had wounded his current adjutant was not lost on him. "Yes, Hatir?"

The Ubroran looked downward, "I just wanted to say thank you, for all the hard work you've put in recently. It...wasn't easy to trust you at first, even though you were endorsed by both Jedi Knights. But these past few days, I don't think I've seen you leave the command centre, let alone sleep. You're totally committed to this, to our planet."

Pravin nodded solemnly, "I am. I cannot do anything but do my best with the assignment I am given. And freeing Ubrora is my assignment. So I devote my whole mind body and spirit to this assignment." He laid a hand softly on Hatir's shoulder. "I may have been your enemy at first. But now I am your staunchest ally. And I can prove it only by giving it my all."

"Will it be enough? To win?"

"A good General will never make a prediction about a battle. Not because they aren't confident in their battle plan or their troops, but because it implies they have control over a battle."

"You don't have control?"

"I can give orders. I cannot _control_ my troops. And even if I could I would not want to. Each man, or Ubroran will have their own role story to write, and I would not deny them that."

Hatir seemed vaguely convinced. "We should go and get things started."

"Yes. It's time to check in with the teams."

Pravin and Hatir went back to the command station. Pravin stood behind Hatir's chair, "Hatir, confirm that all teams are in position."

The Ubroran hit a couple of buttons on his control panel and spoke into the microphone, "Team Unyielding report in."

* * *

"Unyielding lead here, we are ready to go," reported Aurine Brynar. She looked around at her troops all around her. The mood was tense but expectant. After weeks of feinting and raiding, there was finally going to be a battle and the soldiers were up for it. Aurine wasn't as thrilled about going into battle. For one, she had seen the simulations and what the expected results of this battle were. If everything went right, they apparently had a 15% chance of victory. But even such a victory would come at a heavy, heavy cost in terms of lives. Including her own, she was rational enough to admit. She was going to lead from the front and be in the thick of the battle. Unfortunately, that meant that she'd be a priority target, especially for the Mandalorians that were currently with the army.

But she wouldn't have it any other way. She would lead by example, just as she always had.

The plan for her detachment of the Ubroran army was to sweep out of the forest that was currently keeping them hidden and into the right flank of the droid army. With the droids hopefully preoccupied with breaking down the defences of the Aqir River, they would hopefully be vulnerable to a surprise attack. Their advantage wouldn't last for long, but it might last long enough.

* * *

"Implacable team here," said Tiplee. "We are in position."

Tiplee wasn't quite sure when she had slept last, it was certainly before she had left for Bontha, so at least several days. But there had been no time for sleep, between making plans, fighting Mandalorians and traveling across this planet. But there would be time to sleep after the battle was over.

Tiplee turned to her second in command, Tras Guertas, a grizzled veteran of the campaign, which made him vastly experienced as things went on Ubrora, "Prepare the troops. We are awaiting the signal from HQ that we are go."

Tiplee's unit was now the unnoficial '1st Ubroran motorized division.' A more apt name might have been the 1st Ubroran speeder division. Over the past month, the Ubroran army had appropriated speeders from the civilian population to give them more tools to raid with. Eventually the Ubroran army had acquired enough speeders that they had formed a unit that had become used to fighting with these civilian speeders, as imperfect as they were for combat. But that was something easily rectified. Ubroran engineers had done an impressive job of jury rigging the speeders with mounted weaponry – nothing special, just blasters that were inaccurate. As tools of war, they were pretty laughable, but it was better than having tons of infantry. Besides, some of the family-sized speeders could fit four Uborans, all of which could fire at the enemy. It was a weapon from previous millennium, but it was the best they could do. They would have to substitute top of the line technology for ingenuity.

Tiplee stared outward for a moment, all she could see was the forest and the small clearing that they had made so that the speeders could be unleashed onto the open plains of the battlefield. She had thought that she would be contemplating her own mortality, but her thoughts instead were focused on her sister, Tiplar. She hoped that she would get to see her sister again. She hoped that even if she didn't that she grew to be the Jedi that she knew that she could be.

She returned her attention to the present, seeking out her second in command. She found Tras Guertas conversing with some of the more senior members of the detachment. Their conversation died as she approached. "Any last words of inspiration for the troops, General?" asked Tras.

"I am not the most inspirational of speakers," Tiplee admitted. "And they don't need a big speech," she said. "They know what they are fighting for. Their homes. Their family. Their future. They do not need to be reminded."

"What will you be fighting for, Master Jedi?"

The question surprised her. But she gave him an honest answer. "Hope. Family. A better tomorrow."

* * *

"All teams report ready, General Ecalt," said Hatir.

Pravin nodded. "Thank you. Can you advise me as to the position of the droid army relative to our traps?"

"They're just about to approach the first layer of traps, General."

That was good, at least. Over the past week, the Ubroran army had laid out a set of improvised traps in a couple of area that it was likely that the droid army would pass by. Pravin would have loved to have laid mines or something more standard, but the Ubroran army simply didn't have them. So they improvised. While the term 'improvised explosive devices' had a poor connotation in military terms, they had to use what they had available.

"Can we get any of the tanks with our traps?" he asked.

"Scouts report that is doubtful. Might get lucky with some ancillary damage on them."

Pravin decided that would have to be good enough. It was better to make sure that the traps would do some damage than have them go to waste. "Activate the traps."

It was arguably one of the most anticlimactic moments in his life. All the build up of the traps, and all the work that had been put into preparing them he couldn't even see what had happened! "Do we have any way to tell how effective our traps were?" he asked, his hands gripping the back of Hatir's chair.

"Getting in contact with our forces beyond the Aqir river," said Hatir. "Observers report moderate damage to opponent's forces. But the best part is, apparently they got one of the Mandalorians."

"Coren Vox?"

Hatir spoke into his microphone for a moment, and then turned around to speak to him, a slight grimace on his face, "It appears not."

"Well, that would have been too lucky, I suppose."

Hair turned around and started listening. Once he was done he turned back to face him, a look of surprise on his face, "The droid army has pushed forward and is engaging our forces beyond the Aqir River," reported Hatir.

Pravin straightened. He hadn't quite expected the droid army to rush forward into what was a prepared defensive position. A capable general would have launched a probing attack first and then decided on a plan of action. But Coren Vox was not a General and he clearly had no concept of macro level tactics. All he saw was an enemy ahead of him and that he wanted to fight.

That suited Pravin Ecalt just fine. Because Pravin Ecalt had a trump card.

"Contact the _Emerald Dream_. Tell them we might need to move up the timeline."

* * *

" _Emerald Dream_ here," said Sascha Whitestar from the familiar seat in the cockpit of the _Emerald Dream_. "We'll be ready whenever you need us."

Sascha couldn't believe he was here. When Tiplee had dropped him and Nara off, the Jedi Knight had explained that although the roof had caved in Aurine had felt that it was at least worth exploring the chance to see if the _Emerald Dream_ had came through unscathed. Aurine had spoken to Arslan and had the organizer of the resistance have engineers start digging a tunnel from one of the nearby buildings to see if they could make it through to the spaceport itself. Progress had apparently been slow, due to the fact that they couldn't use heavy machinery to dig, lest the droids be alerted. Eventually though, they had managed to get through the rubble, only to find that the _Emerald Dream_ was structurally intact underneath the ruins. Just buried.

Arslan had quietly had engineers brought in to work on the _Dream_ and tried to repair the damage that it had taken. They had done a decent job, and he and Nara had spent the last day trying to repair anything that the Ubrorans had missed. Realistically, it was a patchwork job at best. For one, the shields had been irrevocably damaged and were totally beyond repair. The hyperdrive, if used, was probably as likely to explode as it was to work. However, the engines seemed to be in decent enough shape and both the front mounted lasers and the topside turret were functional. He wasn't sure how long that they would last, but from he guessed that they would hold out.

He looked over at Nara, who was seated in the co-pilot's chair beside him. His Togruta friend was still extraordinarily tired, but there was something in her expression that had been missing for a long time. Hope.

"You ready for this, Nara?"

"Do you think the ship will survive takeoff?"

"Probably. There is a lot of rubble on top of the ship, but you forget this ship was made by the Sluissi, they didn't cheap out on the hull. It'll survive. Now, the repulsorlifts might give out and we might be in for a crash landing seconds after takeoff, but the ship itself will be fine."

"You're surprisingly confident in this ship, considering it seems to be constantly in need of repairs."

"It gets that from it's owner," he said, trying and failing to smile at the wry remark.

Nara glanced downwards, "What do you think the chances are, of...you know...us surviving this?"

Sascha had been thinking a lot about that over the past day. "Well, we'll be flying a shieldless ship into the middle of a huge land battle battle. On the negative side, one good hit will probably do us in, unfortunately. On the plus side, we'll have one of the best pilots in the galaxy at the controls."

Nara snorted, "Don't get cocky."

Sascha smiled and then got serious, "But seriously Nara, make sure your crash webbing is tight, because if we get hit, we are going down hard."

Nara took that in for a long moment, "Just keep us flying as long as you can. I'll make sure that the droid army gets chopped up real nice."

"Just like at the start of this war. I'll fly, you shoot."

The Togruta nodded and got up from her chair, Sascha followed suit. The two Padawans leaned into each other, letting their foreheads touch. It was another intimate moment between him and Nara. It was two friends saying their goodbyes without needing to say anything verbally. They'd simply said all that they'd ever need to say.

He pulled apart from the embrace, "Shoot straight," he said.

"Fly well," said Nara, completing the common mantra.

Sascha returned to his seat, and opened a channel back to Koza Base, " _Emerald Dream_ is ready for launch on command." He deactivated the comm, "Just hope we get off the ground."

* * *

Pravin Ecalt heard the final team check in. Everything was in readiness. The calm before the storm was about to break. There was one more team that he'd love to check in with before he ordered the battle to begin…

He glanced at his chrono. If his father was going to show up with a fleet as he had requested, he had told him to show up in about a standard minute. Pravin paced nervously. While it was still possible that they could win the day without outside help, it improved the odds immeasurably if the _Reprisal_ was distracted by an incoming fleet. Keeping the droid fighters in orbit and not able to support the droid army could end up being crucial.

"Come on dad, don't let me down now," he muttered.

Wisely, Hatir kept quiet.

Pravin turned and looked skyward, as if he could simply will his father into existence. The ceiling of his headquarters didn't exactly provide answers, unfortunately. He turned his attention back to his chrono. It had now passed the time at which he'd told his father to arrive.

Pravin's heart dropped. Instantly he started thinking up excuses. Maybe his father was late. Maybe he had tried his hardest to acquire ships and had failed. Maybe he hadn't even gotten the message.

"Uh, sir?"

Pravin shook out his daze, "Yes, Hatir?"

"I know the fleet missed their scheduled time. It's possible, perhaps even likely, that they are out there, but that we cannot get them on our scanners. The _Reprisal_ may be jamming us from seeing them."

That was a very optimistic way of looking at things. But it was perhaps the outlook the he should adopt. "I agree. We have no way of knowing if they are out there or not." Pravin took a deep breath, "Our fate will rely on our own preparations. Order the attack"

The battle for Ubrora's fate was about to begin.


	55. Chapter 55: Sic Semper Tyrannus

**Mr. Insane -** Good point, but Coren's good at things like small unit tactics, not running something as massive as an entire army. It's something I could have (and should have) expounded upon. But that was my intent.

 **7doom -** Thanks! Glad you are still reading!

 **LordDarthYoda -** Pravin: 'We can't start the invasion until we get RED models to represent my troops! Gosh!' The pieces of the puzzle are almost all here - this is the last one.

A/N - This is the last chapter before the 'battle for Ubrora' which will be 3+ chapters (I'm still playing with it, writing battles is HARD, and I want to make sure that this one gets the conclusion it deserves.) This chapter is not my favourite chapter I've ever written, but it feels like it needed to be written.

Anyways, all reviews, follows, and favourites are deeply appreciated as always.

Please enjoy the next chapter.

* * *

 **Chapter 55: Sic Semper Evello Mortem Tyrannis**

 _That day where we gave up our son to the Jedi was the hardest of my life. Sascha was almost two, and was a happy, precocious child that seemed to take great pleasure in playing with his toys. He hadn't shown that he was 'Force-sensitive' at all. We wondered, and not for the first time, if some mistake had been made, that the technician who tested for Force-sensitivity had gotten the samples switched. That was until we met with our Jedi recruiter.  
_

 _Jedi Master Nova Trynith had been our contact within the Jedi Order since he had been tested and she was fantastic in answering all our questions. It at least helped that when we handed over our son, we were at least doing it to a person that we had come to trust. To those that would accuse the Jedi of being callous or not knowing the pain that they are causing to families, I could tell you of the hundred niceties that the Jedi provided us. But that's another story.  
_

 _The day that Master Trynith came to our house and met our son was special. From the moment that she walked in the door, Sascha seemed to have been entranced by her. Nova went to Sascha and knelt by his side and you could just...see that there was a connection between him and this Jedi that he had just met. There are no words for that emotion that I felt at that moment. Pride, because it was clear that he was a Jedi. And it also felt like my heart was going to tear itself in two at the same time._

 _There was a public ceremony that day were where we ceremonially handed Sascha over to the Jedi Order, as represented by Master Trynith. The truth is, I don't think either of us remember it. It was just such a powerful, emotional moment that I think it just overwhelmed my brain. I've seen recordings of the ceremony. I know it happened. I just don't remember it.  
_

 _The last thing I remember that day is saying goodbye to my son. I will_ never _forget that moment.  
_

-Excerpt from 'My Son, the Jedi' by Donah and Robry Whitestar

* * *

Ravar Ecalt had forged his reputation in business on being the person that saw opportunity where others could not. He wasn't an engineer. Or a marketer. Or the kind of person who could sweet talk people into giving him good deals. He just knew how to be at the right place at the right time with the right product. Not the most flashy of talents, but it had allowed him to build something of his own, Ecalt Industries.

Ecalt Industries wasn't the biggest company, but he had never intended to be in charge of a galaxy spanning conglomerate. He had wanted Ecalt industries to always have a family touch, and if your company was on seventy five different planets, that would simply be impossible (unless you had a very large family.) So he kept things small and when he felt that the company was growing too big, he simply sold off a section of Ecalt Industries to some prospective investor, keeping the company at a manageable size. He couldn't have done it if he had shareholders, so he simply refused to sell his company to shareholders. It prevented him from amassing a fortune. But he had never cared for fortunes. He cared for his family, first, foremost and always.

So when his son, Pravin, whom he had not seen for several years, had sent him a slightly panicked message and asked for his help, he knew that he would provide it. He was a little stunned to find that his son was in need of a battle fleet, but Pravin wasn't the type to ask for things he did not need. His youngest son had always been something of a realist, if a bit of a pushover at times. Pravin's tale had seemed unbelievable, but Ravar had found that the more unbelievable the tale, the higher the potential that it was true.

Quietly, he had made inquiries about this 'Ubrora' that Pravin had mentioned and commissioned a scout ship be sent to find out if this 'invasion' was taking place. That scout ship had not returned or sent any message since departing. That was enough to convince him that something was going on in the Ubrora system, and that Pravin was telling the truth. The next step was him putting out feelers as how to assemble a battle fleet.

The first place he had sent inquiries to was the Jedi Temple, given that his son had informed him that there were four Jedi on planet with him. However the messages and messengers that he had sent had led to nothing from the Jedi. Which was typical. The Jedi loved to sit in their precious temples and forget that the outside world existed. They could be counted upon to act only when it was too late.

His outspoken opinion towards the Jedi aside, his knowledge of the fact that the Jedi potentially needing rescue had turned his attentions to a planet where he'd had substantial business dealings: Kuat. While he didn't really have the full picture of what had happened a year or so ago on Kuat, he did know that there had been some sort of conflict between the Jedi and the ruling Kuati family. Since that conflict, the Kuats had been trying to make amends with the Jedi Order, and as far as Ravar knew, they had not been able to do so. Ravar decided that he would offer them that chance.

So quietly Ravar had asked for an audience with the head of the Kuat family, Onara Kuat. He had been rebuffed, of course. Onara Kuat only met people when _she_ wanted to. But she had sent out one of her family members to communicate with him. The confusingly named Kuat of Kuat had met with him over an expensive interplanetary Holonet call and Ravar had outlined his desire to assist his son.

Kuat of Kuat had been surprised by the request for a capital ship, but there had been something in his cool gray eyes that had suggested that the man was somehow interested in providing Ravar with the impossible. Ravar had assumed that he would have to put together a fleet made up of glory hunters, bounty hunters and smugglers too desperate to decline good money, plus whatever military ships he could...'rent' for the excursion. He had assumed that he'd end up paying some 4th rate Outer Rim defense force an absurd amount of money for a couple of centuries old cruisers. Getting anything from Kaut was a long shot, but it hadn't cost him anything to get this meeting.

A few hours after his meeting with Kuat of Kuat, Ravar had received another message from him. This time, Kuat of Kuat explained that the Kuat family was interested in doing a 'field test' of some of their new capital ship prototypes. Why Kuat was building new capital ship prototypes was kind of beyond him in this time of relative peace, but he had not remarked on that.

After a couple of hours of negotiation, they had their deal. He would 'rent' one of Kuat's new 'Dagger class' crusiers for a few days. The Kuati's would provide the personnel and handle the ship at all meaningful times, but they would commit to engaging the _Reprisal_ and its droid fighters. Ravar would provide the 'Dagger class' cruiser with support ships, ie. Mercenaries. He ended up paying an exorbitant amount for this service, but he decided that he would rather have his son than some credits.

And that was the story of how Ravar Ecalt bought himself a (temporary) warfleet. It sounded impossible, but it was true.

* * *

Ravar Ecalt stared outward from the bridge of his temporary flagship _Kuati Victory_ feeling impossibly out of place. To be fair, it wasn't exactly his flagship. It wasn't really even his ship. It's real captain, Sati Kuat was sitting in the captain's chair beside him. Steely eyed and experienced, Captain Kuat was clearly getting ready to start barking out orders. "Don't let me stop you," he said to her quietly.

"I won't," she assured him. The petite captain stood. Probably not more than slightly over five feet tall, he was pretty sure that she could melt durasteel with her intense gaze. Having interacted with Captain Kuat on a few occasions he would have offered her a job in his company if he thought there was even the slightest chance that she would take it. The petite captain paced, "Lieutenant Danit confirm that everyone is on station."

A middle aged officer turned from his station and acknowledged his captain, "All ships have reported in."

The other ships would be Ravar's auxiliaries. They were the assorted bounty hunters, smugglers, militiamen and other glory hunter that had answered his call for ships to head into battle. Hardly a collection of the galaxy's classiest beings, but they weren't being paid to be gentlemen. They had all formed up around the narrow, triangular hulled vessel that was one of the most impressive ships Ravar had ever seen. Painted a cool grey-while, the command structure jutted out from the triangular hull, which Ravar thought painted an unnecessarily large target for enemies to aim for, but if they got past the shields, Ravar supposed that it didn't really matter if the enemy knew where the bridge was.

"And _The Arrow_?" inquired the Captain.

"Also on station, Captain."

Ravar thought that he could detect a hint of amusement among the crew whenever _The_ Arrow was brought up. The Kuati Captain had expressed doubt about his plan for _The Arrow_ , but since he was footing the bill, she seemed content to let it play out. Ravar, although he was a businessman, had a keen interest in history and he had always wondered why certain proven concepts had fallen by the wayside. _The Arrow_ was a relic from a different time, a simpler time, but Ravar thought it might be effective still.

"Thank you, Lieutenant Danit," said Captain Kuat. The Kuati turned to face another officer, "Lieutenant Torical, confirm that the _Reprisal_ is in orbit around Ubrora. I don't want any surprises."

Lieutenant Torical, a dark-skinned, dark haired mother of two, that had been clearly in charge of shepherding him around the ship glanced up from her station for a brief moment, " _Reprisal_ in orbit as expected."

Captain Kuat started striding away, "Good..."

"Captain," interrupted Lieutenant Torical.

Captain Kuat turned to face the Lieutenant again, "Yes?"

"It appears that ground combat on Ubrora is about to commence. The Ubrorans are launching fighters from the ground and they appear to be en route to the _Reprisal_. Estimated time of arrival is two minutes."

"Why have they started already?" asked Captain Kuat, obviously unhappy.

"My Pravin was always a stickler for timetables," he said. "He set a time for when they were going to attack, and that was... three standard minutes ago. So he's following through with the plan."

The Kuati captain looked incredulous, "He couldn't wait five minutes until we got in position?"

"He may not be able to see us," said Ravar in a conciliatory tone. "The _Reprisal_ has an advanced jamming package, correct?"

Ravar could almost see the lightbulb go off above Captain Kuat's head, "Speaking of that jamming, Communications, have we pieced their jamming?"

The communications officer, a young, harried looking young man, glanced backwards at his Captain, "No, ma'am. I've never seen jamming like this, and, well...I don't know how to do anything besides run the standard anti-jamming protocols on this ship. It's too new."

"Wonderful," muttered Captain Kuat.

"Uh, Captain?" said the communications offcer, "We are being hailed, by the _Reprisal_."

Captain Kuat straightened, "Very well, Mr. Ecalt, you can take the call. I'll get us underway. The Captain's chair is yours...temporarily."

Ravar bowed graciously, "Of course, Captain Kuat."

Ravar cautiously went to the Captain's chair and sat in it, feeling amazingly out of place. He was a businessman, an entrepreneur, not a military man in any way. He hadn't fired a blaster in his entire life, or thrown a punch in anger. But he would do whatever he had to do to get his son back. A father could do no less.

He waited in the chair until a small hologram of a Duros Admiral in a white Uniform popped up on on his right hand side. Ravar nodded politely, "You must be Vash Varless."

The Duros Admiral squinted, "I am. You'll forgive me for not knowing who you are and why you have a...warship at your command."

Ravar waved his hands expansively, "This fine ship is the _Kuati Victory_ and I've...rented it from the Kuati's for the moment. It is at this point that I must ask that you stand down and withdraw all forces from Ubrora. I am authorized to grant a thirty hour ceasefire during which time you will be permitted to withdraw troops from illegally occupied Ubrora."

Vash Varless looked at him in disbelief, "Who are you?"

"My name is Ravar Ecalt. In some circles I am considered a powerful industrialist and businessman. However I come here for one thing: my son, whom you employed until very recently."

Vash stared at him and then started laughing, "You've come to rescue spineless Pravin? You are deluded. Your...ship and its rag tag forces are no match for my _Reprisal._ There will be no peace. Ubrora is mine. You may have come for Pravin, but he is far beyond your reach. Your best bet is to turn around and forget this whole thing ever ended, or there will be not one but two less Ecalts in the galaxy. "

"That is also an acceptable outcome."

Ravar's bravado took Vash aback for a second, but the Duros recovered his arrogance quickly, "Then you will die braver than most."

He smiled faintly, "I can only hope."

"Now if this social call is over..."

"It is. I hope your trip to hell is long and painful. Ecalt out."

Ravar tried to push himself out of the captain's chair but found that his arms and legs were literally quaking from the adrenaline running through him. Captain Kuat surreptitiously helped him to his feet, a rare expression of kindness on her face, "Sorry Ma'am. You can have your chair back. I've had enough of playing admiral for a lifetime."

Captain Kuat gave him a pat on the back – "Don't worry, we'll take it from here. You can observe from the bridge if you'd like."

"I'll observe quietly," he said, searching around for a good spot for which to observe the coming battle. "You're using my plan?" he asked.

The captain nodded, "I think it's an interesting plan, that is worth trying, especially as you are footing the bill. Now if you'll excuse me, I have a battle to win."

Ravar bowed politely and moved to an unobtrusive position off to the side. He had a good view out the expansive viewport and the chaos of the bridge, now being directed like a maestro by Captain Kuat. As the _Kuati Victory_ turned to head towards Ubrora, Ravar got a glimpse of his secret plan. Shaped like...well, an arrow, the _Arrow_ was long and flat, with a bank of engines in the back. Similar in design to the Corelian designed Corvettes that were coming into vogue, the ship had all of it's engines in the rear of the ship. But the _Arrow_ didn't have weapons. It was simply a former sports yacht that his technicians had spent the better part of the week modifying to Ravar's exact specifications.

It might end up being pointless. It might win the battle.

Ravar Ecalt stared out the viewport, wondering which one it would be.


	56. Chapter 56: The Battle for Ubrora, Part1

**LordDarthYoda -** That's an interesting idea. The _Arrow_ isn't quite a Hammerhead class ship though - think much smaller (and the _Reprisal_ is huge!). The book's theme really is family and I'm glad you caught it, as it's something I've tried to work into this book (especially the later chapters). And re: _Millenium Falcon_ , I actually thought about adding it in, but it added basically nothing and the next chapters have enough stuff going on I didn't want to write a _Millenium Falcon_ cameo too!

 **Mr. Insane -** It's going to be wayyy more than 2 chapters. Probably four. There's a lot to get through and many characters that need to be checked in with. I like that there are competing theories with the _Arrow_. It might end up being totally useless too!

 **Son of Dorn -** It's not that its necessarily a bad chapter, I just think it breaks up the momentum of the story a bit too much. If you haven't noticed the main theme of this book has been family, and how it can affect lives, for good (Ravar and Pravin) and bad (Nara's attachment to her old family.)

 **SpeechBubbleMe** \- Thanks. Yeah, I'm bringing a bit of the first book back here. Nothing too much, but its a nice callback, I thought.

A/N - The battle for Ubrora begins! Yes it took 56 chapters to get here, but it's finally here. Thanks to everyone who continues to read this little (or not so little) exploration into the Star Wars Universe. Amazingly the readership numbers have probably never been better, which I find be almost too good to be true. So thank you all.

Oh, and in case you missed my hints in the previous chapter, the ship that Ravar is renting? It's a prototype Star Destroyer (or Jedi Cruiser as they'd be known in the clone wars).

Anyways, all reviews, follows, and favourites are deeply appreciated as always.

Please enjoy the next chapter.

* * *

 **Chapter 56: The Battle for Ubrora, Part One**

 _"May the Force be with us."_

\- Message from General Pravin Ecalt transmitted to troops upon commencement of the Battle for Ubrora.

* * *

The first action in the battle for Ubrora was Aurine Brynar igniting her lightsaber. Sure, some historian in twenty years would probably argue differently, but for Aurine Brynar, there was no doubt in her mind that she had started this battle.

The droid army was an imposing sight, there was no doubt about that. Thousands upon thousands of merciless killing machines, machines that would be unaffected by the weather, the sounds of battle or their companions being destroyed by the hundreds. But the droids were focused on another target at the moment, pounding the well-entrenched positions behind the Aqir river. Aurine hoped that their fortifications would hold out, because they were taking a beating from the droids – especially from the battle tanks and their powerful main armament.

"Forward!" she shouted, thrusting her lightsaber forward in a dramatic pose, urging her troops out of their concealment in the forest and towards the droid army. A mass of onrushing Ubrorans tried to shove her out of the way, so Aurine did the obvious thing and led the charge herself. The Ubrorans weren't going to charge into melee range, of course, but to get the ten thousand plus Ubrorans into a proper firing arc, they had to get forward, and quickly.

Aurine realized the flaw in that plan almost immediately. As the troops behind started firing, she found herself dodging out of the way of some of the wayward shots from the Ubrorans behind her. And as the droid army reacted to the incoming threat, blaster fire started incoming from her front. As it turned out, getting shot at from two polar opposite directions, either intentionally or unintentionally was not a great situation to be in. Furthermore it prevented her from moving forward with any sort of alacrity. And she needed to be quick because her lightsaber had well, limited range.

Aurine spared a quick moment to look around and found a person sized crater that had just been created by the fire from a battle tank. Deciding that she needed to get into something resembling cover, she lept up and landed in the crater. Less than a minute after the battle began, Aurine was happy to be out of the fray. She peaked her head up over the ridge and looked at the chaos.

Laser fire was intensifying between the two sides as the Ubrorans sought to bring all their arms to bear and the droid army reacted to this new threat on it's flank. For now, the Ubrorans seemed to have the advantage in fire, but it was only a matter of time until Coren Vox got his army turned around to bring the big guns forward. Coren's army still had a lot of battle tanks and droidekas and those were dangerous machines of war. Except, because they had been arrayed to fight the forces that were defending the river, they were all in the wrong position. The droidekas needed to be in front to make up for their limited range and to make best best use of their shields, but the vast majority of them were facing the river. That meant the droideka's had to be redirected to push through their own army to get to the actual front and that would take time. The battle tanks were slightly more mobile and most had already turned towards the new threat, but some were already down, victim to the fact that they had been flanked and vulnerable to the incoming fire.

Aurine looked around. The cacophony of battle was in full swing now, complete with the sounds of blaster fire, battle cries and the wails of the wounded. Finally Aurine truly understood the phrase, 'the horrors of war.' She had been in many fights in her life, but there was nothing in her life that compared to this. It was just chaos everywhere. It was so increadibly hard to hear yourself think let alone act. She wasn't even sure what she could do to help. She could try to rush the front lines with her lightsaber and get shot at by both sides. If she made it through she could do some work with her lightsaber, but she didn't necessarily think she could get there.

Aurine grimaced at her own recalcitrance. If she couldn't be brave and charge into harm's way, how could she expect any of the Ubrorans behind her to stand and fight?

Aurine jumped out of the crater and charged, lightsaber held high.

* * *

Tiplee tapped her fingers against the dashboard of her speeder impatiently. The open-topped speeder, which housed her and 3 other Ubrorans was going to be one of the first unleashed into the developing battle. However, the cavalry, such as they were needed to be unleashed at the right time to maximize their effectiveness. And Tiplee wasn't in charge of that. She looked at her comlink, as if she could simply will the person on the other side to give her the order to go.

Another minute passed with no order to go. "Pravin, you there still?" she spoke into her comlink.

"Yes. It's still a hold on the speeders," Pravin replied calmly.

Tiplee, from her vantage point could only see some of the battle, but she could definitely sense what was happening not far from her. It was hard to explain the assault on her senses that was occurring. It was like being battered by wave after wave of emotion, each coming faster and more powerful than the last. Tiplee was experienced enough to know how to combat it, muting her presence in the Force and staying focused on just herself.

It was hard though. She wanted to be a part of this battle, she knew that she could be a massive help to the Ubrorans, even if just as a symbol. But she and Aurine had agreed to give Pravin Ecalt overall command, so she would follow his orders, even if she would hugely prefer to be in the middle of the action instead of just waiting for the right moment to strike.

After another agonizing few minutes of waiting, Pravin's voice came through her comlink, "Implacable team you are good to go. May the Force be with you."

Tiplee turned to the driver of the speeder, a young Ubroran named Geonic Narik "Go! And don't worry if I jump out of the speeder. Just keep going until there are no droids left to shoot."

Geonic smiled tightly and gunned the engine, making sure that this former luxury speeder was the first of the 'cavalry' to emerge from its hiding spot opposite to where Aurine's flanking force had emerged from. Tiplee wouldn't have had it any other way.

The speeder lept out of their hiding place and bounced through the partial clearing that had been hastily cut through the forest. Even the luxury speeder's advanced repulsorlifts were having trouble with the terrain and Tiplee was jolted around in her seat as the speeder moved. "Hang on!" said Geonic.

Tiplee was not headstrong enough to ignore the advice. She clung on to the side of the speeder as if her life depended on it. Because it did. When the speeder stopped shaking, Tiplee released her hold on the side of the speeder and looked up to see the battle in all of it's 'grandeur.' The Ubroran army had been divided into two. One part had been tasked with defending the river, and it had taken the brunt of the fire at the start of the battle. The Ubrorans had dug in, using improvised shield generators and the like, but just judging by the damage that the land itself had taken, losses had been fairly heavy.

But that had been allayed by the relative success of Aurine's flanking force. With the droid army of Coren Vox (who she could see zipping around on his jetpack) ill prepared to fight Aurine's flankers, the Ubrorans were making headway. But Coren was getting his army positioned properly and now the fight was swinging back in the other direction.

The cries of Ubroran and droid alike created a cacophony the likes of which Tiplee had never heard before in her life. The grassy area on which they had chosen to fight on had looked like the opening shot of a nature documentary before the battle. Now it looked like someone had chosen to strip mine the entire place. And the battle was not even close to being over yet.

Yet there was little time to consider the scope of the battle. It was time for the cavalry to come and even the odds. Pravin's plan was to use these speeders as half-distraction, half-raiding force. But Tiplee saw them more as a way of getting her right into the thick of battle. "Head for the center of the droid army, she said, as she hopped up onto the front of the speeder. The wind buffeted her terribly, but she used the Force to keep herself from falling. She never heard the response from Geonic, whatever he tried to say, the wind simply carried away. All that mattered is that he drove the speeder at the thickest concentration of droids.

Tiplee ignited her lightsaber and waited. Waited to strike. Waited to bring justice and freedom back to Ubrora.

* * *

Aurine Brynar was losing herself to the Force. In a good way. In simple terms, the battle was so chaotic that doing anything but listening to the Force was an invitation to be hurt. Even though Aurine was one of the strongest warriors in this battle, she was having trouble making an impact. The only weapon she had on hand was her lightsaber, which was a great weapon...but one not designed for large scale battles where the laserfire was coming in thick and hot. How she hadn't been hit by a laser bolt seemed to defy any laws of probability.

But her tenacity was about to pay off, because she was about to reach the first lines of battle droids, and her true target, the Mandalorians that were flitting around, causing death and mayhem wherever they went. The droids would have to go first, but if Aurine had her way, she'd be bringing those Mandalorians to some Jedi justice soon.

With a cry, she lept into the air and swung her lightsaber around, decapitating the first battle droid she saw before spinning and cutting her way through a second, then a third, and finally a fourth. Finally, she was unleashed into the battle and she intended to make the most of it.

Aurine cut the head off of one battle droid then twirled and lowered her lightsaber, separating the next beige droid into two separate, useless halves. Then she deflected an incoming blaster bolt towards another droid, which missed its intended target, but not by much. The droid that had just managed to avoid the deflected bolt got a lightsaber jammed through it's chest for having the audacity of making her miss.

Then she was buffeted backwards slightly by two far more powerful laser bolts. She knew what that meant. _Droideka_.

If a designer sat down and wanted to build a droid that could take on a Jedi, they'd probably come up with something similar to a droideka. The small shield that was built into the hull of the insect like droid was strong enough to redirect her lightsaber and to deflect blaster fire. But she had learned a few things about how to deal with droidekas from Tiplee...

Aurine twirled agilely out of the way of the droideka's next volley of fire, gathered the Force around her and unleashed a Force push towards the droid. It caught the advancing droideka square and knocked it flat on it's back. Then, as the droid righted itself, Aurine reached out with the Force again and used the Force to, not so gently, realign the droideka's two 'arms.' Nothing too dramatic - she just changed the angle of their blaster arms just slightly. The droideka righted itself and fired at Aurine...except the lasers that the droideka emitted didn't get past it's own shield. The blaster bolt bounced off the shield and buried itself right into the droideka's 'head.' The droideka dropped to the ground and rolled to the side, smoking. Dead.

Aurine smirked. She had turned the droideka's biggest strength into its weakness. The way that the droideka was able to fire and still be protected by its own shield was that the computer that controlled the shield opened it for fractions of a second to allow laser fire through. Aurine had simply re-aligned the droid's arms, throwing off that calculation. Which meant that the fire simply bounced off its own shield and right back at it, essentially destroying itself. With a little assist from her, of course.

Aurine got a temporary reprieve from the battle, as there was no one in her immediate vicinity. She looked skyward and brushed her hair out of her eyes. Where was the _Emerald Dream_? Where were the Padawans? The next phase of the battle relied on them and they were in deep trouble if they did not arrive.

* * *

"Let's go, Sascha!" said Nara's voice in his earpiece.

"I'm trying, I'm trying," he protested. "I'm getting some weird readings from the power reactor and I wanted to see if they would settle down before taking off."

"Well if we don't take off _now_ we are going to miss the whole battle!" Nara protested from her seat in the gunner's station of the _Emerald Dream's_ top mounted turret.

"And if we crash on takeoff, we aren't going to BE a part of the battle. But you are right. We gotta go now." He grasped the controls with his clammy hands "Here goes nothing," he muttered. He activated the repulsorlifts and immediately felt the ship protest at trying to escape all the rubble that was buried on top of it. "Come on, come on," he said, as his hands flew over the control panel, trying to find a way to get more power to the repulsorlifts.

He could feel the hull of the ship straining against the rubble piled on top of that. But more than that he could _hear_ the ship as it groaned against both gravity and against the weight bearing down it. Sascha glanced nervously at the ceiling. He didn't think that the ship's hull would give way, but he hadn't heard a noise quite like this before. It sounded like the ship was fighting against a choir of screaming banshees. And losing.

Sascha bit his lip and put more power into the repulsorlifts, siphoning power away from the engine. It was risky, because the engine might refuse to cold-fire. But the engine wasn't going to matter if they crashed back to the ground, so he took that risk.

The grumbling noise that surrounded the ship seemed to increase in volume, and Sascha wished desperately that he could cover his ears to protect them from the loud, annoying noise. The hardest thing for him at the moment was he couldn't really tell what kind of progress they were making. All he could see out his viewport were pebbles and small rocks falling to the wayside, but due to the lack of light he was having trouble determining if they were making progress at all. For all he knew they had just been holding position five feet off the ground since takeoff.

Then suddenly there was light in front of his viewport. Then he could see the sky. And then Ubrora's sun.

Sascha emitted a whoop of excitement and watched in amazement as the _Emerald Dream_ shucked off its shackles and rose above the rubble that was the spaceport. Like a phoenix, the _Emerald Dream_ rose to fight again.

Carefully, Sascha transferred power from the repulsorlifts and to the engines, making sure that the remaining rocks on top of his ship didn't topple off the ship and cause devastation to the nearby structures, some of which were still (mostly) in tact. When he was pretty sure that most of the remaining debris was off his ship, he engaged the thrusters and let the ship fly.

And amazingly, it did.

"Nara we are on our way. Get ready for battle."

"Gotcha. How's the ship?"

Sascha was trying to put it through its paces while at the same time making sure that they were going to get to the site of the battle before it was too late. "Well, shields are still nonexistent. Engines are at about fifty percent and fading ever so slightly as we go...probably a leak somewhere. I'd say we are sluggish and vulnerable but we have a huge element of surprise. And we have the big guns."

"Okay. Tell me how long before we arrive."

Sascha did some quick estimation, "Two minutes or so."

"And can you tell what's going on...anywhere?"

Sascha looked down at his instruments. The scanners had taken a beating but were fairly functional. He hadn't bothered to power them up because they wouldn't help the ship emerge from the rubble, but now they might actually want to see what was going on with the battle. He booted up the scanners and was greeted by a wail of static, but after that cleared it appeared that the sensors were working...reasonably well.

"Looks like there's fighting in orbit. There's sensor readings for a capital ship that I don't recognize. The Ubroran fighters are also engaging the _Reprisal_."

"Who is winning?"

"No idea. We are too far away to get a good reading, but at least _Reprisal_ will be distracted."

"And the land battle?"

Sascha stared at the readings on his scanner for a moment, "Too hectic to tell anything," he admitted.

"Okay."

Sascha felt a thrill of dread as he sensed that they were approaching the battle. He steeled himself against the onslaught of emotions but he still felt a shiver go up his spine as they approached the site of the battle. Stay focused, he told himself. Just an hour of focus. That might be all he had left to give, so he would give it.

He looked out the viewport and saw the start of the Janit forest, which meant that they were very close.

And then, without warning, they were a part of the battle.

The front of the battle almost stretched as far as his eye could see. And what he saw the most was laserfire, fire so thick it seemed to blot out the very ground that the two armies were fighting over. He was so awed by the spectacle of the battle, both the sheer scale and the ferocity of it, that he didn't fire the _Emerald Dream_ ' _s_ armament during their first pass.

"Sascha, hello? If you'd like me to shoot something, give me angle to do so!"

Nara's voice in his ear startled him into realizing that he was not just an observer in this battle, but an active participant. "I'll bring her around for another pass."

As Sascha fought against his damaged ship, willing it to turn around, he realized something that he should have a while ago. With the Emerald Dream's turret (and the Togruta inside) at the top of the ship, to give Nara something to shoot at he'd have to fly in at a downward angle. Or fly the ship upside down, he mused. That seemed...ill advised, so he decided that he'd bring the ship towards the battle at a downwards angle.

As the Slussi designed ship came back around to the battlefield, he took care to line Nara up with shots against the most important targets – the battle tanks. Though their numbers had been gradually whittled down from the nearly one hundred that had started the invasion, there were still more than fifty battle tanks in the main battle. Armored enough to withstand several hits from standard weaponry, the Ubrorans had no counter to the tanks.

But the droid army had not been expecting the _Emerald Dream._

During their second pass Sascha lined up a row of five battle tanks, and Nara hit each and every one with several hits from the topside turret, causing several to explode, with the rest clearly damaged beyond repair. Sascha did what he could with the front mounted lasers, firing into the mass of battle droids that were supporting the battle tanks but probably not being all that effective.

Sascha banked the _Emerald Dream_ away from the battle, not wanting to get too close to the battle itself. With no shields, one good hit from just about anything above a standard blaster might bring down the ship, or at least cause it significant damage. But there was no other choice but to fly as close to the battle as possible. Not if they wanted to help out.

He brought the _Emerald Dream_ back towards the battle and immediately had to take evasive maneuvers as which looked like a small missile shot right past the ship. Sascha's eyes raked the battlefield, trying to find out what was shooting at him. As he dived to avoid another incoming missile, he saw who was attacking him. It was one of the Mandalorians, shooting what appeared to be a shoulder mounted missile launcher.

Sascha gritted his teeth. He had no idea if the _Emerald Dream_ could take any sort of hit from a missile launcher in it's current state. With it's shields running it probably wouldn't have been a problem. Without them if a missile hit the ship in a vulnerable area, that might be enough to send the ship spiraling down to the ground. Or worse.

Sascha aimed the ship towards the largest concentration of battle tanks he could find and lined three of them up for Nara. Sascha felt the topside turret open up and saw red lasers streaking towards the battle tanks. The first few shots missed, but Nara quickly found the range and the _Emerald Dream's_ lasers started tearing chunks out of the battle tanks. The first tank simply appeared to lose power and wilted to the ground. The second battle tank exploded, sending fiery shrapnel wildly across the battlefield and further damaging the tanks beside it. Sascha never really got to see what happened to the third tank, first because he was distracted by the sight of his Master's green lightsaber on the battlefield, and second because another missile whizzed right by the side of the ship. That time he hadn't even seen the missile coming.

This was going to end badly, Sascha could already tell. Whichever Mandalorian was firing at him was going to hit, eventually. The _Dream_ just wasn't agile enough in its current state, and he needed to be close to the battle to allow Nara to be effective from the topside turret. So that meant the Mandalorian knew approximately where he was going to be aiming – and that made the ship vulnerable.

He twirled the ship away from the battle in an evasive maneuver that would give him a free moment to speak to Nara, "Hey...Nara."

"Yeah. I see it Sascha. What do you want to do?"

"I don't think we have a choice," he said resignedly. "We have to keep going back, doing these strafing runs, otherwise the Ubroran army's going to get wrecked."

Nara paused for a long moment as he brought the ship into a long turn that would bring them back around. The chaos of the battle was lessening at the moment, and clearly lines had been drawn. And it didn't look good for the Ubrorans. Though the droid army was surrounded, it was pushing forward and the Ubroran army was starting the long process of failing.

"We gotta keep doing this. It was good doing this with you, Sascha," her voice breaking ever so slightly.

"It was my pleasure, Nara."

The _Emerald Dream_ headed into battle once more, lasers blazing away.


	57. Chapter 57: The Battle for Ubrora, Part2

**LordDarthYoda** \- I think Aurine had watched one too many Holomovies. Turns out being that heroic Jedi leading the charge isn't exactly the easiest (or most prudent) thing to do. Poor _Emerald Dream_ , it only seems to pop up when I'm about to crash it/destroy it/bury it under a ton of rubble.

 **Mr. Insane -** Thanks! I think the thing about this fight that I've tried to convey is that it's _massive_. So even if Tiplee/Aurine wanted to find that Mando shooting at the _Emerald Dream_ , its not a given that they could find him/her, or even get to there.

 **7doom -** I think you'll be hating me for a couple more chapters...

 **SpeechBubbleMe** \- I kinda was brainstorming that one for a while. I walk to work, so I use that time to think of things that I might want to use in the story later (problem is I forget some of the best stuff before I write it down)

A/N - So this was originally supposed to be a longer chapter, but the place where it ends off just happened to be the most convenient place to end a chapter, so I do apologize for that. I would have added more but there's some sort of Super Bowl going on that's distracting me... Part three will be a fair length as well as part four. (As well as part five...maybe?)

Anyways, all reviews, follows, and favourites are deeply appreciated as always.

Please enjoy the next chapter.

* * *

 **Chapter 57: The Battle for Ubrora, Part Two**

 _"Lieutenant, no battle plan survives contact With the enemy. I suggest that if your troops are not in firing range right now that you ADVANCE UNTIL THEY ARE!"_

-Message from General Pravin Ecalt transmitted to Lieutenant Hiram Paltic, ten minutes after the start of the Battle for Ubrora.

* * *

Ravar Ecalt was learning that he did not enjoy being in a space battle. In fact he thought that he might be space sick.

The _Kuati Victory_ had started out the battle on the front foot, opening up on the _Reprisal_ with an impressive amount of turbolasers. But the _Reprisal_ had weathered the storm with apparent ease and replied with turbolasers of it's own. The _Kuati Victory_ had shuddered upon receiving that first volley, but had appeared to have dealt with it fairly well. From the schematics that Ravar had studied, he knew that the _Reprisal_ , being a _Lucrehulk_ class ship, didn't have the strongest armament in terms of lasers– however it did carry an almost absurd number of droid fighters. And those would be reaching the _Kuati Victory_ very soon.

From what Ravar could gleam from listening to the barely controlled chaos on the bridge and from what he could see out the viewport, the battle had started going badly as soon as the gaggle of droid fighters had made their way out to the _Kuati Victory_. While his pieced together auxiliaries made up of inexperienced mercenaries tried to combat the perfect discipline of the droid fighters, the _Victory_ and its fleet was having a hard time defending itself from the droids.

The droid fighters were quick and agile, and without any starfighters of their own to combat them, they were simply too hard to hit and too numerous. Ravar's mercenaries were trying, but with their mismatched and often outdated weaponry, they were having trouble making an impact. The other problem was that the _Victory_ was having trouble defending itself with its own weapons, because the Kuati gunners didn't want to hit the ships that were (theoretically) protecting her.

It was a situation that wasn't going to last.

The _Kuati Victory_ shook violently, which caused Ravar to reach out and steady himself on a nearby railing. He turned his attention to the bridge where things were certainly getting more and more tense.

"What just hit us?" barked Captain Kuat.

"Droid fighter," replied someone from the command pit.

"Droid fighter lasers aren't that powerful! And our shields are still up!" exclaimed Captain Kuat in disbelief.

Lieutenant Torical turned in her chair slightly, "It crashed into us, Captain. We have reports of several droid fighters intentionally crashing into us."

The ship shook again with another impact. "Well someone STOP them from RAMMING US, PLEASE!" The fiery Kuati captain almost lost her balance as another volley of fire from the _Reprisal_ smacked into the _Kuati Victory_. "Damage report!"

"Port side shields are holding but weakening. Minor external damage to the dorsal hull. Small leaks on decks 24 through 28. Repair teams have been dispatched."

"Good. Damage on the _Reprisal_?"

The same officer shrugged helplessly, "Minimal, I'm afraid."

The Kuati Captain looked exasperated, "What are the Ubroran fighters doing? They have the _Reprisal_ all to themselves!"

"They're engaging the _Reprisal_ , but they are having difficulty making a mark onto the enemy ship."

Yet another explosion rocked the ship, this one even stronger than the first two, and this time, Ravar's old, nonathletic body could not stay upright and he slunk to his knees. It took him a moment to regain his footing and by that point, klaxons were beginning to wail.

It had been a long time since Ravar Ecalt had wondered if he was going to die in the immediate future. But it wasn't a new experience for him. Once, when he'd been visiting one of his factories, one of the reactors had gone critical. He'd been told that it was only going to be a matter of minutes before it exploded and it would level most of the city and surrounding area. Without a way to escape, he'd called his wife and told her that he loved her. He had been sure that was the end. A miracle had saved him that day. He wasn't sure if another one was going to be in the offing. But he was very happy he'd told his wife and children in person how much he'd loved her as well as made sure that his will was in working order.

Captain Kuat stood tall, "All weapons, focus on the _Reprisal_. This ship is tough enough to survive the droid fighters. Or it better be. Because if it isn't I will haunt the engineers that made this ship through all seven hells!"

The diminutive Kuati pointed at someone in the command pit, "Lieutenant Danit communicate with our auxiliaries. Tell them to protect our starboard side."

"Our...starboard side?"

"Yes the one that isn't facing the _Reprisal!_ Now do it!"

Ravar didn't really understand the strategy, but outside of asking if this prototype ship had escape pods, he felt that he should probably remain as a quiet observer of the battle. He glanced out the viewport. The _Arrow_ was still out there, untouched by the battle. He had thought that the _Arrow_ would have still been a part of the battle plan, but with things so chaotic, he supposed there wasn't time or resources that could be devoted to his little flight of fancy.

That was too bad, he had thought it was at least worth a try...

Someone managed to get the klaxons that were echoing around the ship to stop. But the _Kuati Victory_ kept being rattled by the _Reprisal_ and the droid fighters. Damage reports kept filtering back to Captain Kuat, who seemed to be increasingly fiery. Ravar took that as a bad sign.

"Port shields are down to 14 percent!"

"Roll the ship!" ordered Captain Kuat.

The helmsman looked up at the captain in confusion, "What?"

"Roll the ship so that the _starboard_ side of the ship is facing _Reprisal_! Don't give them our weak side for them to shoot at!" Captain Kuat found a new target to yell at, "And tell those Force forsaken mercenaries to guard our port side! Tell them there is a bonus if we survive this battle!"

Those were going to be very rich mercenaries if they survived, thought Ravar. He had promised them a bonus if they liberated Ubrora, and each and every credit would be worth it if he could be reunited with his son.

Captain Kuat turned and marched over to him. Ravar assumed that she'd be asking for permission to withdraw from the fight. He'd deny it, for whatever it was worth. This was _her_ ship, he was just renting it. Ravar was sure he'd get his money back. Unfortunately he had lots of money, he did not have another youngest son.

Ravar folded his hands behind his back, "Yes, Captain?"

"How confident are you in the _Arrow_?"

"I don't know, Captain. It's an idea rooted in tradition as far as military history goes..."

Captain Kuat stopped his rambling with a firm hand on his shoulder, "Mr. Ecalt. I'm about to bet the lives of several thousand Kuatis on this ...ship and its plan. I want to know that this isn't some lark for you. That this ship has some sort of merit to it."

"I..." he stammered.

Usually in business, one did not have to make split second decisions. Mergers and acquisitions were usually only done after thorough vetting. Products were only put into production after thousands and thousands of hours of market research. Ravar Ecalt, though a successful businessman, had made very few snap decisions in his life. He didn't like making quick decisions. He was a calm, patient man that considered all the dat before making a decision. But here he didn't have that luxury.

Was he willing to gamble thousands of lives on what was, quiete frankly an untested idea? If it was own life in the balance he would have done it without hesitation. But he had come to know many of the Kuati officers during the few days he had spent on _Kuati Victory_. These were good people, by and large. Was he willing to bet their lives on his little plan?

"I think it will work, Captain Kuat. The _Arrow_ may at the very least put the pressure back on the _Reprisal_."

The Kuati Captain nodded sharply, "Let's hope so. Because you know what I said about haunting the engineers if I die here?"

Ravar nodded, "Yes."

The petite Kuati poked him hard in the chest, "That goes double for you and your family if this doesn't work." The Captain of the _Kuati Pride_ turned sharply and walked back to the command pit and barked out the order, "Tractor beam control, it's time. Unleash the _Arrow._ "

* * *

Jedi Knight Tiplee wasn't going to let the battle come to her, she was going to bring herself to the battle. Watching the blasterfire coming toward her and the speeder she was currently occupying, she decided it was time to make her escape. She jumped up onto the hood of the speeder, feeling the wind whipping against her. She took a moment to steady herself and then bent her knees deeply. Then springing like a Altalian Leopard, she uncoiled herself and leapt high into the air and towards the droid army.

While the remaining speeders continued to stay on the outside of the battle and fire at the now partially encircled droid army, Tiplee charged into the thick of battle, heading towards the nearest battle tank. She covered the ground quickly. A little known fact about Rishati was that they were deadly fast sprinters. It could only be used for short distances, but over that short distance, she would be far faster than a human would be.

But her speed almost did her in, as the battle tank she had been rushing toward was lanced by fire from the _Emerald Dream_ as it streaked across the battlefield like some technological bird of prey. The battle tank took two direct hits from the turret and simply exploded.

 _This battle is chaos,_ thought Tiplee. She couldn't tell how the battle was going, and there was probably few people who could with any sort of certainty. All she controlled was her actions. Tiplee would have loved to have found one of the eight or so Mandalorians there were flitting around the battlefield, engage them in single combat at strike them down. Unfortunately, the Mandalorians seemed quite content to avoid her and wreck havoc on the Ubroran troops instead.

For a moment, she regretted jumping off her speeder, as now that she was on foot, she had lost a lot of her mobility. Unfortunately, if she tried to track one of the several Mandalorians, they would probably see her coming and use their jetpacks to get away. Overall, the Mandalorians remained a tactical puzzle that she, nor anyone else could resolve at the moment.

But she was not above trying.

"Coren Vox!" she shouted, using the Force to amplify the power of her voice, "Fight me you coward!" She swung her lightsaber around for dramatic effect, "I am Jedi Knight Tiplee. I challenge you!"

If this was a Holomovie, this would be the point where the villainous Coren Vox would come over and accept her challenge. Then the two of them would scrap it out one on one while the battle dramatically raged all around them.

This was not a Holomovie.

Not a single Mandalorian, Coren Vox or otherwise, paid even the slightest attention to her. That meant to get their attention she'd have to do something to get their attention. And that meant destroying or disabling a whole lot of droids.

Tiplee spotted a squad of spindly battle droids that was trying to advance towards the front lines. The Rishati smiled grimly and sprinted towards the droids, lightsaber held high.

The last thing that squad of battle droids processed was a red blur wielding a blue lightsaber.

* * *

Aurine Brynar was in the thick of battle and carving through droids as fast as she could. Time was an abstract concept now. There was only the present, only this battle.

She had lost track of the full picture of the battle. She had no idea if the Ubrorans were winning or losing. There was no time to even think about such things.

With a deafening roar, the _Emerald Dream_ made another pass through the heart of the droid army. It was a rare sound that could be heard over the cacophony of battle, but the _Emerald Dream_ was flying low enough and its engines were powerful enough to be heard. From what she could tell, the two Padawans were doing good work. Every time they dove through the battlefield, explosions seemed to follow, and it seemed to Aurine that the number of tanks that belonged to the droid army was dwindling.

The only problem was that Coren Vox was not stupid. Aurine was sure that the Mandalorian was focusing all his efforts into taking down the _Dream_.

Aurine returned her attention to deflecting blasterfire. She kept herself low to the ground, trying to minimize her profile. Then, spotting an opportunity, she found a group of battle droids that had somehow been isolated from their companions and took a big, Force-enhanced bound towards them. She didn't quite make it to them in the first leap – she had underestimated how much the battle had taken out of her already. By her second leap she was there and her lightsaber was shearing through battle droids like it was the only purpose it had ever been built for.

Moments later, the droids were gone, and only she was left standing.

Aurine plotted her next move, and heard the telltale signs of the _Emerald Dream_ coming around for another pass. She turned and looked, as the ship's turret raked the droid army, taking what had been functioning droids and droidekas and turning them into _pieces_ of droids and droidekas. Before the ship got too low to the ground, Sascha banked the ship on it's side and began pulling away from the thick of the fighting.

Then, a bolt of lightening crossed the battlefield and struck the _Emerald dream_ right near where the hull and engines met. As the explosion rocked the ship and it wobbled in the air as her Padawan fought with the controls. For a moment, she thought that the ship might be able to survive the direct hit, but suddenly smoke burst from the rear of the ship and it lost altitude.

The _Emerald Dream_ lurched over the forest, wounded, trailing smoke, away from the battle.

And then it was gone.

* * *

The cockpit of the _Emerald_ _Dream_ was pandemonium. Klaxons were sounding and smoke gradually was wafting into the air. In the pilot's chair, Sascha Whitestar still wasn't quite sure what had hit the _Dream_ , probably a missile from what of the Mandalorians, but whatever had made contact had done a number to the ship. Sascha fought against the controls, his arms straining against gravity, against his dying ship. If he could just keep the ship above the treeline, he thought that he might be able to guide the _Dream_ to a safe landing somewhere flat.

Suddenly, somewhere in the aft of the ship, there was a small explosion and the nose of the ship pointed downward. This time, there was nothing he could do to flatten out the ship's trajectory, "Nara!" he shouted, "We're going down!"

The _Emerald Dream_ , now obviously mortally wounded, sunk into the treeline and was battered by the top layers of the treetops. The ship had enough speed that it simply smashed through the trees without a care in the world. The sound that it made in the cockpit was something else though – it was like listening to a thousand tree branches shatter so close to you that you could almost taste the tree bark.

Sascha, in a last ditch effort to stop a catastrophe from occurring, activated the repulsors, hoping that they could propel the ship upwards in an attempt to slow their descent. It worked for about two seconds, and then the the repulsorlifts too failed and the nose of the ship pointed down to the ground.

Sascha didn't even have a moment to contemplate his own mortality before the ship struck the surface.

The nose of the _Emerald Dream_ hit first the ground with a resounding _**crash**_ **.** In the pilot's chair, Sascha lurched forward as the ship's internal compensators failed. His head smacked the dashboard and then he only knew darkness.


	58. Chapter 58: The Battle for Ubrora, Part3

**LordDarthYoda** \- I cannot even describe how much I hate Anakin blowing up the droid control ship in EP1. The kid is 9! It's a miracle he knows how to fly the thing at all (let alone not crash it the moment he takes off the autopilot). Yeah yeah, midiclorians made him do it. Whatever. I think Sascha should start walking around with a helmet on. Poor guy gets hit in the head too often!

 **Mr. Insane -** Hmm, the Mandalorians could probably team up to kill one of the Jedi, but why bother when they have tons of droids to wear the Jedi? They'll plan to take them down when the Jedi are good and tired. Mandalorians are generally not stupid fighters, they are going to wait for fatigue to do their job for them.

 **SpeechBubbleMe** \- Thanks. Cliffhangers are slightly unavoidable in this case but at least this one ends off with slightly less of one.

A/N - Got nothing to say.

Anyways, all reviews, follows, and favourites are deeply appreciated as always.

Please enjoy the next chapter.

* * *

 **Chapter 58: The Battle for Ubrora, Part Three**

Ravar Ecalt was kind of getting used to the vibrations that came when you were on a battleship that was in battle. It was like being in the middle of an earthquake. Like an earthquake, the ground (or deck) was shaking, it was loud, and you never could quite tell if the shaking was getting softer or more intense.

Hopefully they'd be able to give Vash Varless a taste of battle very soon.

Off to the port side of the _Kuati Victory_ , the what had been the dormant looking _Arrow_ lurched into action. It's engines cold-fired and sprung to life. Long and thin, the _Arrow_ had impeccable engines, top of the line, really. And it was about to get an extremely hefty boost.

The _Arrow_ had a simple concept behind it. The _Reprisal_ was slow and not heavily armed, its defenses came from its good shields and from its droid fighters. The _Arrow_ was the exact opposite. It was fast, agile and small.

It was also packed to the brim with explosives.

If Ravar's knowledge of military history had taught him anything, it was that the bow and arrow was possibly the single greatest weapon ever invented. The bow provided power to the arrow and then the arrow did the damage to its target. Ravar planned something similar here. The bow was the tractor beam of the _Kuati Victory_. And the arrow was...well the _Arrow_. A bit on the nose in terms of naming, but, it sufficed.

If everything went to plan, the _Arrow_ would escape notice during the middle of the battle and make it to the _Reprisa_ _l_ unmolested. And although the _Reprisal_ 's shields were still up, and were likely to be even if the _Arrow_ reached its target, the theory was that the _Arrow's_ high speed would allow it to pierce through and overload the _Reprisal_ 's shield. The theory there was that because the _Reprisal_ was so big, its shields could not handle such an influx of energy focused on such a narrow area. The way shields worked for capital ships is that the shield tried to distribute energy across its surface area, lessening the energy and allowing the shield to 'absorb' the impact. But just like how the droid fighters were able to crash into the _Kuati Victory_ because they were small and going quickly (making the impact focused on a small area of the shield), the _Arrow_ followed that same concept. Except if the _Arrow_ connected to the _Reprisal_ , Ravar was sure the explosives would cause significant harm to the enemy ship. How significant, he wasn't quite sure.

"Tractor control. Are you ready?" asked Captain Kuat.

"I've got a solid lock. About to give the _Arrow_ a good head start."

Another voice from the pit, " _Arrow's_ engines approaching their max speed."

Ravar looked out the viewport and saw the _Arrow_ on a path that was a fair distance away from the massive _Reprisal_. None of the _Reprisal's_ lasers or droid fighters seemed to pay the ship the slightest bit of attention. For all the _Reprisal_ 's crew knew, this was a mercenary that was trying to flee the battle, not worth cataloging at all.

The _Kuati Victory'_ s tractor beam then latched on to the _Arrow_ and upon calculating a ballistic path that would take it towards the _Reprisal_ the tractor beam latched on and directed it in the general vicinity of the _Reprisal._ Usually a tractor beam was used to bring a ship closer to a capital ship. But it had other uses. In this case they were using centrifugal force, with the _Kuati Victory_ as the center and the _Arrow_ as the outward body being whipped around.

The G-Forces that the _Arrow_ had to endure to survive the acceleration of the turn it had just taken would have broken almost every internal compensator ever made and knocked a flesh-and-blood pilot unconscious. That's why the pilot was one brave astromech. The only crew of the doomed _Arrow_. The irony that the _Reprisal_ could be brought down by a ship piloted by a droid was not lost on Ravar Ecalt either.

By the time that the _Reprisal_ seemed to realize that the _Arrow_ was heading on a direct course for it, it was too late. The _Arrow_ rocketed in to the _Reprisal_ at an almost absurd speed and exploded in a blinding flash of light. The _Reprisal_ wasn't quite swallowed by the explosion that the impact had created (and the subsequent explosives detonating, but at least one quarter of the ship seemed to be engulfed by the fading remnants that had been the _Arrow_.

"Direct hit!" yelled someone from the command pit.

Ravar clenched his fist in victory. Now to see what damage the _Arrow_ had managed to do.

" _Reprisal_ 's shields are down," yelled another Kuati officer. "Unknown further damage. Trying to get further readings"

The diminutive Kuati Captain leapt in and punched the air, "Kriff further readings! Weapons! Hit the _Reprisal_ with EVERYTHING! TAKE IT DOWN, NOW!"

Ravar Ecalt let a small smile creep onto his face. He wondered if the historians would correctly credit him with this unorthodox tactic that had potentially won the day. Probably not.

A series of tremors rocked the ship, causing Ravar to slip and fall on his posterior, wiping his triumphant grin off his face. _What the heck was that_?

The Kuati Captain had much the same question that he did, "What now?"

"The droid fighters...they've been deactivated."

"What?" asked Captain Kuat in total disbelief.

Lieutenant Torical swung around in her chair, "There's no signal coming from the _Reprisal_. The droid fighters aren't getting instructions so they are continuing on their last course. Some of which, inevitably, led them crashing into us."

"So the droid fighters...are deactivated?"

"Yes, Ma'am," replied the Lieutenant.

For the first time, Ravar Ecalt was feeling optimistic about the battle for Ubrora.

Captain Kuat gesticulated at the _Reprisal_ , "Keep up the barrage on the _Reprisal_ until they surrender! I don't want those droids coming back on line!"

As the _Reprisal_ floundered, the _Kuati Victory_ found new life, hammering away at the suddenly beleaguered opposition ship.

All thanks to one well placed arrow.

* * *

It took a few moments for Aurine Brynar to realize what had occurred. She had been carving through droids, deactivating them with less and less ease as she tired, when she realized that the _droids weren't firing back_.

Aurine carved through the rest of the squad of droids she had been engaging just in case this was some sort of advanced psychological fake out. After that task was complete she looked around. The only movement that she could detect in her immediate vicinity was from the droids was them falling over, or Droiedekas curling into their 'deactivated' position.

Not sure how to react, she let her arm fall to her side, pointing her lightsaber at the ground. But she came to her senses quickly. She continued to use her lightsaber to carve through the droids, "Keep going! This might only last for a few minutes."

Aurine cut through a squad of deactivated, motionless droids when her eye spotted something that was actually moving. It was the Mandalorians, all six of them. They were flying together on their jetpacks, forming up as a group some distance away from her. Aurine dropped into a defensive posture, and pointed her lightsaber at the Mandalorians, "SHOOT THEM!" she shouted, hoping that there were some Ubrorans around that could hear her.

The few Ubrorans that were in earshot responded , firing their weapons at the grouped up Mandalorians. One particularly well aimed shot glanced off the shoulder of one of the Mandalorians, no doubt that the Mandalorian's armor had had some effect on abating the blaster bolt, but damage had been done. Then Coren Vox put power to his jet pack and flew away from the battle. Right behind him were his five remaining Mandalorian buddies. So predictable.

Aurine finally stepped out of her combat posture and took stock of her surroundings. She was still in the middle of the droid army. Miraculously, besides a few minor cuts and bruises, she was physically okay, though she was pretty close to being out of breath from having to be in close combat for...however long the battle had lasted.

Some Ubrorans were continuing to fire their weapons at the newly comatose droid army, but more and more, what Aurine could see and hear was celebrations. Celebrations of an improbable, impossible victory.

She wasn't quite in celebration mode yet. Instead she decided that she would sit down, deactivating her lightsaber as she did. The import of what had happened was still yet to sink in, but it was only a matter of time before the cold numbness in her brain was replaced by some other emotion.

Aurine calmly stretched out in the Force for her Padawan. Sascha was alive and...well not well. But he was alive. That was enough for now. She also sensed that Tiplee was coming towards her and quickly. She opened her eyes to see the Rishati driving a speeder and making a beeline right for her. Wearily she stood and waved her friend down.

The Rishati was not in as pleasant a mood as she was, as Tiplee's face was set in a thin, agitated expression, "Get in," she said without preamble.

"Why?"

Tiplee pointed in the direction where the Mandalorians had fled, "The Mandalorians are going after the _Dream_ and our Padawans."

A cold feeling of dread formed in Aurine's stomach. The Padawans were in absolutely no shape to fight a newborn nexu, let alone six Mandalorians. Aurine used a Force empowered jump to land in the passanger seat of the open-topped speeder. "Drive fast."

Tiplee did.

* * *

Nara Nalto awoke with blood trickling down her face, and a pounding headache. The around her air smelled of smoke and the ship's ear piercing alarm jolted her addled senses.

For a moment, she wasn't exactly sure where she was. The Togruta tried to piece the last couple seconds of her life back together as she tried to sit up straight.

She remembered that she had been operating as the gunner of the _Emerald Dream_ and that she had been causing carnage in the battle.

...then something had hit them. And then they had crashed. Which explained the blood, the headache and the smell of smoke. They'd obviously make some sort of half-successful crash landing.

Still in the gunner's seat, she dabbed at her forehead with her hand and looked at the result. There was blood on her hand, but there wasn't much of it. That meant that she had been cut, but not badly. A flesh wound. Manageable. With a groan she undid her crash webbing, which had likely saved her from being thrown bodily through the viewport, but hadn't done much beyond that. During the crash she figured that she had probably hit her head on something – probably the controls to the turret. That would explain the cut, and the headache and the temporary unconsciousness.

Nara stumbled out of her chair and spoke into her comlink, "Sascha?"

No response.

Maybe her comlink was just damaged. It was certainly possible.

Nara gingerly slid down the ladder that led from the turret to the main section of the ship. As she regained more of her senses she was starting to realize how hurt she was. She could feel that she had been bruised in a number of places and though she was pretty sure she hadn't been seriously hurt, her body was letting her know that it hadn't appreciated being brought in for a crash landing.

Once she reached the main section of the ship, she started coughing almost immediately. The smoke that she had smelled earlier in the was clearly visible in this section of the ship, and she dropped low to the floor immediately to improve the air quality. It helped. A little.

Finally, her mind made the right connection. Smoke meant fire...which meant...

The ship was on fire!

And she didn't know where Sascha was!

"Sascha!" she shouted. And then regretted that action immediately as she inhaled some smoke and instantly started coughing. Okay. No more shouting, thought Nara.

While it was possible that Sascha had already escaped the ship, she thought it rather unlikely that Sascha would have left her behind. He wasn't the type to do that.

Crawling on all fours, she made her way towards the ship's cockpit. Parts of the ship were smoking, control panels were sparking, with exposed wires seeping from the bulkhead had previously contained them. Thankful that the _Dream_ wasn't that big a ship, she was able to get to the cockpit relatively quickly. Nara saw that Sascha was slumped over in the pilot's seat, his head pressed against the dashboard. The crash webbing that was supposed to have kept him from hitting his head on the dashboard had clearly failed. Though he was mostly still, Sascha's eyes were fluttering, but not staying open, which probably meant that he had been knocked unconscious by hitting the dashboard, and was yet to fully regain his senses.

Nara quickly crawled over to his seat, undid Sascha's crash webbing and spoke his name insistently. Sascha's head lolled around like he was partially able to hear, her, but he was clearly too hurt to respond or react in anything resembling a cogent manner.

She took a brief look around at the deteriorating conditions in the ship and decided that she needed to move him. While moving a partially unconscious human who had an obvious head injury was not exactly textbook first aid, she knew that with the ship on fire that extracting Sascha came first, worrying about his condition came after she got him to safety.

With Sascha free of his crash webbing, she gently slung her arm underneath his shoulder and started sliding him out of his seat. When she had gotten him out of his seat, that was when Nara realized that she had a problem. While she could fairly easily carry Sascha (who was pretty slender for an adult human), she didn't have that luxury with the smoke that was rapidly filling the ship which meant that she had to stay low to the floor.

So Nara went with the only option she could think of. She dragged Sascha behind her while she crawled back towards the main section of the ship and what (she hoped) was a functioning docking ramp. As she crawled on her hands and knees, her muscles strained at carrying the dead weight of Sascha behind her. Dead-lifting was a much different proposition than dragging Sascha's dead weight. But adrenaline powered her, because she knew that eventually, something big was going to explode and then there was going to be more than just smoke and isolated fires in the _Emerald Dream_.

Nara coughed once again from the smoke. Her eyes were now watering constantly and she was having a hard time figuring out exactly where she was in the ship. That was probably because she had been knocked unconscious for an indeterminate amount of time just recently. Not a problem she could worry about now. Nara kept herself to the left side of the ship, hopeful that she would quickly get to where the boarding ramp lowered.

As the smoke continued to fill the interior of the ship, Nara felt herself starting to fade. The adrenaline seemed to have have worn off rather quickly and she was feeling dizzy from both the smoke inhalation and her head injury. Gotta keep going, Nara thought through her increasingly woozy mind.

Nara felt along the side of the ship with her left hand. She was sure that the manual latch that would release the docking ramp was around here somewhere. She tried to look upwards, but had to close her eyes and cough as smoke agitated her eyes. She would have to do this by touch.

Nara brought her left hand upwards again, searching for the latch. Finally, she found it and pulled.

And nothing happened.

She pulled the latch again, and again. It simply didn't lower the docking ramp as it was supposed to.

"Work, damn you!" she shouted. She pulled again.

With a loud groan of metal grinding against metal, the docking ramp lowered. It didn't make it all the way to the ground, but she didn't care. It felt like fire was licking at her from every direction and she knew that she had to get off the ship, and soon. She crawled on her hands and knees, dragging Sascha behind her, and then slid down the ramp, gaining momentum as she went. The ramp stopped a few feet short of the ground, and with her momentum carrying her, she slid off the ramp and to the ground like a sack of tubers. She managed to break her fall a little bit but still landed hard on the ground.

It all wouldn't have been so bad if Sascha's semi-conscious body hadn't followed immediately behind her and fallen on top her. Coughing and wheezing from finally inhaling non smoke infested air, Nara shoved Sascha's body off of her. She still needed to get away from the dying embers of the ship, because if the fire spread to something critical, like the engines, or the power core, the whole ship might decide to go up in a fireball and she wanted to be far, far away when that happened.

So despite an aching body desperate for rest, despite lungs that wanted to just calmly breath fresh air for a few moments, and despite the fact that her memory was so hazy she was having trouble remembering what had happened thirty seconds ago, she got to her feet, hefted Sascha on to her shoulders and staggered away from the dying wreck that was the _Emerald Dream_.

She wasn't quite sure how she did it. It might have been the Force. It might have been pure survival instinct, but she carried Sascha until she could carry him no longer. When she wasn't sure she could take another step, she dropped Sascha as gently as she could on the ground and then finally collapsed beside him.

Nara laid on her back, her chest heaving from her heroic exertions. She could have laid there forever, just staring blankly up into the midday sun of Ubrora, totally and utterly exhausted. Had she just cared about herself, she probably would have. But she cared about the person beside her and his health. So, she rolled over and got up to her knees, and started checking on Sascha.

Sascha was laying flat on the ground, his eyes closed. The cut on his face had opened again and it was dripping off the side of his head. Nara tore a small part of her robe off and pressed it against his cut. Sascha winced and tried to raise his arm. Nara held it in place, "It's okay Sascha. I got you."

Sascha nodded slowly and tried to speak, but whatever word he was trying to speak was so soft that she couldn't make sense of it. "Just stay down, we're okay," she said calmly. "I need to check you out. Yelp if it hurts."

Sascha swallowed and managed to croak, "Okay."

Nara started using her hands to check on Sascha. Head came first. His head was okay, despite the obvious concussion and the cut on his face – there wasn't any obvious swelling that she could detect. A good sign. Nara moved lower on Sascha's body and immediately noticed that something wrong. Sascha's shoulders were weirdly off, out of alignment. Nara pulled away the first layer of Sascha's robe and instantly saw the issue, Sascha's collarbone had clearly been broken. She gently prodded at it and Sascha tensed up and grimaced, "That hurt," he managed.

"Your collarbone is broken, I think."

"...great."

Nara agreed that it wasn't particularly good news, but Sascha at least seemed to be coming back to his senses. His words were no longer slurred and he seemed to be in control of all of his faculties. "Anything else hurting?"

"I think my right knee is damaged," Sascha said as he tried to sit up.

She gently pushed him back down, "Stay down, Sascha. Was that the knee you tweaked a few days ago?"

"Yeah. It's more than tweaked this time."

Nara shuffled towards Sascha's legs and lightly probed at Sascha's knee. His right knee was swelling up fairly dramatically and she didn't want to damage it further by doing anything more than a light probe, "I think you should probably keep off that leg as much as possible, Sascha."

"That bad, huh?"

Nara shrugged and felt a spike of pain go down her spine, her right shoulder was hurting more than a little bit now that the adrenaline was almost totally gone. "We've done our part. Now we just wait for the final accounting."

Sascha nodded, "You're favouring your left leg, you know."

Now that he mentioned it, her leg was really hurting. She rolled up her pant leg to see what the issue was. Her knee was purple, well purpler than it usually was, and it was rather tender when she poked at it. Probably not major damage, but she should probably not be putting much weight on it at this point. "Yeah I didn't exactly get out of the ship unscathed."

Sascha turned his head to watch the _Emerald Dream_ continue to burn, "My poor ship. It always seems to get shot down."

Nara settled on to the ground beside Sascha, lying parallel to him, "Needs a better pilot," she joked lightly.

"Probably true."

Nara paused for a moment, "What happens now?"

"I don't know. We've done our part. It's up to everyone else now. Maybe we already won."

"Maybe we already lost," she replied, acutely feeling how hurt her body was at this moment. She could have probably used a nice dunk in a bacta tank, but she would have settled for a nice, warm, bath. Or a nice long sleep.

"Cynic," Sascha replied mockingly. He sat up, wincing badly as he did, "Does your comlink still work?"

Nara had to search for a bit but she found the comlink that she had stored in one the pockets of her robe for safekeeping. She inspected the device, "Seems like it _should_ still work."

"Hmm. Maybe try contacting Pravin Ecalt at the main base. He might know what is going on." As if on cue, the comlink started buzzing, indicating an incoming call. She glanced at Sascha who shrugged, "It might be Pravin."

Nara answered the call and put it into speaker mode, "Hello?"

"Nara! You're okay?"

"Yes Master Brynar. Sascha and I are a bit banged up but we'll survive. What's happening with the battle?"

"It's over," said Aurine with disbelief evident in her voice, "We think the _Reprisal_ has been destroyed or knocked offline."

Sascha started laughing and wincing as he did. Nara could hardly believe it. Someone had managed to disable the _Reprisal_? That meant the droid army was down. "We _won?"_

"Not quite yet," said Aurine. "The six remaining Mandalorians are on their way to you. We think they are going to try to get your ship to fly."

Sascha looked over at the _Emerald Dream_. Fires still dotted it's hull and while it had never become a raging inferno, the ship wasn't going to be spaceworthy for weeks. "I don't think the ship will fly anywhere," he said.

"Then I suggest that you flee, Padawans."

Nara looked over at Sascha who shook his head slightly, "I don't think we can run anywhere, Master Brynar. We're a bit beat up."

"Hide then," Aurine said plaintively. "Tiplee and I are coming. The Mandos will get there first though."

"I can feel them coming," Sascha said quietly.

"Go hide, Padawans," said her Master.

"We'll try," promised Nara. "Get here as fast as you can."

Nara ended the call and she saw Sascha struggling to his feet, so she helped him up. "Not much use of hiding when those Mandos probably have thermal imaging in their visors is there?"

"Shut up and walk," she replied as she slung an arm under Sascha's armpit. Together, both Padawans limped away from the wreck of the _Emerald Dream_.


	59. Chapter 59: The Battle for Ubrora, Part4

**LordDarthYoda** \- Yeah by the Clone Wars the droids are locally controlled, right now, the droids are all controlled by the control ship...which is kind of under siege at the moment. Nara's in the topside turret and she just kind of bashes her head into the gunnery station when they crash. Seat belts save lives (but there wasn't an airbag for her head to smack into...) You nailed the Mandalorian strategy too!

 **Mr. Insane -** As someone who played a lot of WH:40k (though many years ago), that was certainly a bit of an inspiration. I think Coren has seen the writing on the wall and is probably trying to plot his own way out.

 **SpeechBubbleMe** \- As someone who did archery in high school I might be partial to the bow-and-arrow :).

A/N - Got nothing to say.

Anyways, all reviews, follows, and favourites are deeply appreciated as always.

Please enjoy the next chapter.

* * *

 **Chapter 59: The Battle for Ubrora, Part Four**

Aurine Brynar ended the call with the Padawans. She had a really bad feeling about this upcoming confrontation with Coren Vox and the other Mandalorians. Through her connection with her Padawan she could tell that Sascha had been badly hurt during the crash of the _Emerald_ _Dream_ and was in no position to fight anyone, let alone six Mandalorians. She doubted that Nara was in much better condition than Sascha. Tired, fatigued Jedi were vulnerable Jedi.

Tiplee was piloting the speeder with what she could only describe as nearly reckless abandon, cutting and weaving through the trees of the Janit forest at top speed. Despite the Rishati's impressive driving skills, the speeder was bouncing wildly up and down of its repulsorlifts, as the ground level changed. The speeder was also getting smacked by various vines and branches that were hanging low. Aurine herself was having to keep her head low to avoid taking any collateral damage from the forest. Tiplee wasn't quite so fortunate. She had to keep her head up to pilot the speeder, and was getting whipped by some low-hanging vines that seemed to be prevalent in this part of the forest.

Still, Aurine didn't issue a word of protest or even think about telling her to slow down. She didn't want to distract Tiplee either, as at the speeds at which they were currently driving, if Tiplee made an error, she probably wouldn't even have time to shout before she'd be hurled from the speeder, crash webbing secured or not.

Aurine brushed a hand through her hair and felt something warm and stick _y._ She was cut. She dabbed at the cut on the top of her head again. By the amount of blood she could see on her hand it was not a particularly big cut. Still, it was somewhat annoying to discover that she had been cut on the top of her head and she couldn't even remember when she had taken such a hit. Whatever. Inconsequential. All that mattered was the health of her Padawan.

It saddened Aurine to think that for the past few weeks her Padawan's health had slipped out of her top priorities. It had been a mistake. Tiplee had made her realize that. She just hoped that Sascha wouldn't end up paying the price for her choices. Aurine started rocking forward and back in her chair, if almost to lend that slight bit of momentum to the speeder.

"Must you do that?" asked Tiplee, as she swerved wildly out of the way of a tree that had seemed to appear out of nowhere. This part of the forest was not quite as thickly populated with trees, so Tiplee was really gunning it, pushing its engine to and past its capacity. The forests on Ubrora were odd, they seemed at times to almost be part jungle and at others it was a sparsely populated, almost 'normal' deciduous forest.

"I want to be doing something," she replied.

"How about calling Pravin and seeing if he can summon some reinforcements? Or a medical team. The Padawans will probably need it regardless of what happens."

Tiplee always did seem to have good ideas, Aurine thought. The Rishati was an experienced, level headed Jedi. And she was a Jedi that she had come to greatly admire. Aurine pulled out her comlink, which was a Ubroran model after her usual comlink had stopped working a few days ago. Besides being of an unfamiliar design it worked pretty well.

After a short delay, Pravin Ecalt picked up, "Master Brynar…"

Aurine cut him off, "Pravin, can you get a squad of soldiers and a medical team to where the _Emerald Dream_ crash landed?"

"I…can see what I can do," said Pravin. "The young Jedi, are they okay?"

"They're okay for now. But we need any reinforcements you can summon. Quickly."

"The Ubroran army is a bit disorganized and I'm trying to finish dismantling all the droids just in case they are reactivated. But I'll try to get something sent your way."

The forest was starting to get thicker again and Aurine was wincing at some of the last second dodges that Tiplee was making with their speeder, "Pravin, do you know what happened up there? With the _Reprisal_?"

"The jamming is down but I have not connected with the forces led by my father. All I can assume is that the _Reprisal_ has taken some serious damage. That's about all I know at this point."

"Tell your father that he's bough about a lifetime of goodwill from the Ubroran people. And from the Jedi Order."

"I'm sure he'll be glad to hear that. But I must resume my duties," said Pravin.

Aurine nodded, "Good luck, Pravin. If you don't hear from us in the next hour...assume the worst." Aurine ended the call. She had wasted enough of Pravin's time. She returned her attention to the present.

 _Hold on Padawans. Just hold on until we get there._

* * *

Sascha Whitestar felt like he was fading in and out of consciousness as he and Nara limped through the Ubroran forest. His head hurt. His chest hurt. His right knee felt like it had been dipped in acid and every time he put any weight on it, he thought that it might give out entirely. He was pretty sure the only reason that he was still able to move at all was Nara. He hadn't thought that Nara had that much willpower left after all the things that had happened to her over this mission, but he had obviously been wrong. She had managed to drag him from the burning wreck of his own ship and carry him to a safe distance. Then after all that she was now carrying most of his weight as they tried to evade the incoming Mandalorians.

The Mandalorians were coming, no doubt. Even with his mind numbed by the head injury he had sustained, he had enough ability in the Force remaining that he could simply _feel_ the hatred and malevolence of six Mandalorians getting closer and closer.

Sascha stumbled over...something, he was having trouble getting his eyes to stay focused on what was in front of him. To keep him upright, Nara had to hold him tighter, which made his broken collarbone inflame in pain. He yelped loudly in pain, before he was able to regain his footing.

"Nara, can we stop? This is pointless. All we are doing is tiring ourselves out."

Nara continued to hold him up, with her left arm hooked under his armpit, "We might be able to get away."

"Nara, there are like six Mandalorians trying to find us. I think that they can find two exhausted Padawans clumsily traipsing through the forest!"

"Then what do you want to do, Sascha?"

"I think we might as well stand and fight. Or you could leave me here and try to get away on your own. I'm only slowing you down. Up to you."

Nara seemed to consider his words carefully, "I'll stay with you. Mostly because I don't think I could escape the Mandos, even on my own."

"You sure? Don't stay here just for me."

Nara slowly shook her head, "I think I'd rather take my chances together. We've shown that we are pretty strong together, right?"

The honest answer would have been that neither of them were strong enough anymore to fight such dangerous opponents. He was sure that Nara knew that too. But there was very little point in focusing on the negative or the obvious. These might be his last moments of living, he didn't want to spend them pointing out that the remainder of their lives could probably be measured in a small number of minutes.

"Yeah, we're the best Nara. The third and fourth best warriors on Ubrora."

"I'm third," boasted Nara.

Sascha laughed, even though it hurt to do so. That was very much a comment that Nara would have made a few weeks ago, back when he used to privately refer to her as a little scamp. She wasn't a little scamp anymore. She was a good friend, edging into best friend territory. And they both had saved each others lives and told each other things they had revealed to few others. That was pretty close as far as friends went.

"Okay. I reserve the right to challenge you for third at a later date though," he replied.

Nara snorted lightly, "As if you could ever beat me."

Sascha stood beside his friend, shoulder to shoulder. "No one's beat us when were are together. Let's see if we can keep that record intact. He looked over at his friend. Grime and matted blood covered her face, and her lekku were covered with dirt and cuts. She held herself favoring both her left leg and with her right arm hanging tenderly from her side. But she was in better shape then he was. Not that it was saying much.

The two Jedi took their lightsabers off their belt and waited for the Mandalorians to find them.

* * *

Aboard the _Kuati Victory_ Ravar Ecalt was starting to quietly celebrate. While the _Reprisal_ was not yet destroyed or out of the fight, the damage that the _Arrow_ had inflicted seemed to be permanent. With its droid fighters disabled, the _Victory_ had a tremendous advantage that it was currently pressing with zero holds-barred. It was only going to be a matter of time before the _Reprisal_ broke. He hoped.

Ravar had underestimated the toughness of the _Reprisal_ though. He had thought that after a couple of volleys from the _Victory_ the _Reprisal_ would surrender. Or attempt to run. But the _Reprisal_ doggedly continued to fight, though it was vastly outgunned.

"Why won't they surrender?" barked Captain Kuat. The tiny Kuati pointed at him, "Mr. Ecalt, get in the captain's chair and see if you can wrangle a surrender out of the _Reprisal_."

"I...wouldn't even know how to begin."

"Just tell them if they don't surrender we'll blast them all into the afterlife. That should motivate them."

"What terms should I offer?"

The Kuati captain gesticulated frustratedly, "You're a businessman, get us a good deal!" She turned around to observe the battle and inevitably find someone else to yell orders at.

Ravar stood frozen for a moment, totally caught off guard by the request. But then he turned and found the captain's chair and sat in it. This time he didn't feel as horribly out of place as he did last time. He waited for the holographic form of Vash Varless to appear. When after thirty seconds, Vash was yet to appear he considered asking someone if the communications gear had been damaged during the battle.

Then, a shell shocked looking Neimoidian appeared in holo in front of him. "Who in the seven hells are you?" he asked.

The richly dressed Neimodian looked around furtively, "I am Administrator Protash."

"Son, my name is Ravar Ecalt, and I'm calling to negotiate a surrender with Vash Varless. If you don't put him on my screen within the next minute I'm going to tell my captain to blow your ship into its constituent molecules. So go fetch him and stop wasting my time."

Ravar didn't like to be mean, it wasn't in his DNA to be disrespectful. But when a competitor sends a flunky to meet with you, you give the flunky a hard time, because if you allowed a competitor to disrespect you, it allowed them to claim the high ground. The business world was cuthroat. It was the only world he really knew.

The Neimoidian visibly floundered in holographic form. "I cannot get Admiral Varless. The Admiral has...left the bridge."

"And why, pray tell, would he do that?"

"He's heading for the escape pods. I think."

"You think, or you _know._ "

"I know, I know!" cowed the Neimoidian.

"Okay then Administrator, who is running the ship?"

The Neimoidian blinked and looked around but said nothing.

Ravar figured it was time to drive the dagger home. "You see, we're from the Republic. If you surrender honorably I'm sure we can work out some sort of terms that will keep you free of jail time. Otherwise, I'll be forced to assume that you are in charge of this illegal invasion of Ubrora and hold you legally accountable as such!" Ravar was bluffing. But he was pretty sure the person on the other end of this call didn't know that.

"I...I...what are your terms for surrender."

Ravar was having to think on his feet here. He wasn't sure what good terms were for a surrender. "First, you give us Vash Varless. I will send a boarding party to confirm he is in your custody. Second, you will power down the _Reprisal_ and lower all defences. I have no further terms at the moment, though I reserve the right to change that."

Administrator Protash looked off screen, as the picture shook. The _Reprisal_ was continuing to be rocked by the _Kuati Victory_. Ravar concealed a feral smile. This negotiation was about to end in his favour.

"I accept your terms. Call off the attack!"

"We will cease fire as soon as possible," he said with a trace of smugness. Then he ended the call. He bounced out of the captain's chair with an ease that belied his advancing years, made his way to Captain Kuat and bowed politely, "Captain Kuat, I've accepted the _Reprisal_ 's surrender."

"Vash Varless actually surrendered?"

Ravar smiled tightly, "It appears that Admiral Varless is attempting to run. He is apparently trying use an escape pod to flee."

Captain Kuat shouted into the pit, "Boarding parties are a go. Arrest all officers and make sure the _Reprisal_ is disabled. Tell the squads that whoever brings me Vash Varless gets a bonus. Weapons – hold for now but stay ready." The Kuati captain finally seemed to relax just slightly, "Looks like we managed to win the day. Congratulations, Mr. Ecalt."

"Thank you for your spirited conduct, Captain Kuat," he replied, bowing slightly.

"Mr. Ecalt," shouted Lieutenant Torical, "I have General Pravin Ecalt for you." There were a couple of cheers from the command pit on that pronouncement, mostly from officers who didn't have anything to currently be doing.

Ravar felt himself get emotional, but he absolutely did not want anyone to see that it did. Then he decided he didn't care. "I'll speak to my son," he said, his voice cracking with emotion. Instead of going back to the captain's chair, Lieutenant Torical guided him to her own station and handed her headset over to him. "Ravar Ecalt," he spoke into the headset.

"Hi Dad."

Ravar got choked up for a moment at hearing his son's voice. His son sounded tired but proud, as well he should be. "Hi, son."

"Thanks for coming to the rescue. I'll give you the full details later, but I need another favour."

"Another favour?"

"This one's a bit more manageable. Is it possible for you to send some troops or a medical team to coordinates I will give you? We have hurt Jedi that we'd like to take care of. We'll also take any medical supplies that you can give us."

"Send me the coordinates, and I'll see what I can do."

"Thanks dad. I'll see you soon. I have many stories to share."

"Don't do anything stupid, son," Ravar chided.

"Wouldn't dream of it," Pravin commented dryly. "Ecalt out."

Ravar stood from his station and tried to track down Captain Kuat. "Captain, I have one last request..."

* * *

Nara Nalto stood beside her best friend and waited for a fight that would probably be her last. The longer that she stood here with Sascha, the worse her body felt. Her head really, really hurt. She could feel swelling increasing around her left eye and she could almost feel it want to close. Her body wanted her to lie down and stop moving. But she wouldn't let it. She _couldn't_ let it.

The Mandalorians were close now. She could hear them coming as they trampled their way through the forest. She wasn't sure if Sascha could hear them yet. Whatever damage her body had taken, her sensitive Togruta hearing was still working well. Nara's ancestors had once hunted in forests much like this one. They'd hunted in packs because the predators of Shili were a lot more ferocious than your average Togruta and there was strength in numbers, in the pack. Her pack was reduced to just two. But it was still a pack.

As if out of a nightmare, the Mandalorians came into view. All six Mandalorians had slightly different coloured Armour. A couple showed damage from the battle, one was what you might have considered, wounded, the shoulder of his armor had been blackened by a blaster bolt and his arm was held limply at his side. All of them were in better shape than she or Sascha though.

Beside her, Sascha dropped slightly back and to her left. Ironically, this was the position that most Padawans took up when fighting with their Master. Which meant that she was playing the role of the 'Master.' This would have amused her, had the situation not been so dire.

The Mandalorians fanned out, giving them all good angles from which to fire from. She and Sascha ignited their lightsabers, but made no move to attack. In normal circumstances, attacking probably would have been a better plan then getting surrounded by Mandalorians. Neither Jedi was really mobile enough to go on the attack though. So they played for time and a potential last minute rescue.

Coren Vox stepped forward and Nara tensed, which sent a wave of pain through her body. Coren held his hands up and away from his weapons, "Well, if it isn't our two youngling Jedi from Bontha. You two have been quite a thorn in our side for a while now."

"More than a thorn," she retorted. "We won. You lost. The droid army is gone."

"But we remain," said Coren, who took a long knife off his belt and started inspecting it. "Which leaves us to the final accounting. It appears I will no longer be paid for this assignment. This makes me a...free agent of sorts."

"You're a wanted criminal, Coren," said Sascha through gritted teeth. "The only freedom you have is what planet you are going to be imprisoned on."

"That's very cute of you to say, young Jedi. And so very naive. See I'm about to have two very important hostages." Coren pointed his knife directly at them, "You two."

Nara snorted loudly, "Taking Jedi hostages is historically not a good plan. It very rarely works out for the hostage takers. We're never going to stop trying to bring you to justice Coren."

Coren nodded as if he had expected that response, "I'm not really giving you a choice in the matter. But you are right. Maybe I'll only need one Jedi hostage. I think it would be such fun to kill you in front of your Master. It would be nice payback for the many friends and many years of my life that your witch of a Master cost me."

"You want revenge, come and get it yourself," Nara replied hotly. "You and me. One on one."

The other Mandalorians looked to Coren, obviously expecting him to accept her challenge. But Coren merely laughed, "A good ploy, little Jedi. And one that might have worked against someone younger and dumber. But not me."

Nara forced a casual shrug out of her shoulders, "Coward."

That insult stung Coren, as Nara knew it would. She and Sascha had a far better chance at wasting time if she was dueling Coren and not fighting six Mandalorians.

Coren laughed loudly and pointed at them, "Take them both. I want them alive. But...take some liberties with the Togruta if you have to."

The five other Mandalorians advanced towards the Jedi. She and Sascha stood their ground, mostly because it was the only thing they could realistically do. The Mandalorians didn't fire their weapons, ostensibly because they wanted to take she and Sascha alive. But taking Jedi alive who had their lightsabers functional was a tricky task, at best.

While the five Mandalorians starts to circle around she and Sascha, out of the corner of her eye she saw Coren preparing something on his left vambrace. Then she felt her danger sense flare. But even with full warning that something was coming, she wasn't ready for what Coren had prepared.

What she could only describe as a sonic boom emerged from Coren's arm, and the sheer force of it knocked her off of her feet and onto her butt. She struggled back to her feet just in time to get blasted by a second sonic boom. The second one knocked her flat onto her back and her head hit the ground, giving her an instant influx of dizziness.

Nara got to her feet again, but she was unsteady on her feet and stood, knock kneed as a pair of Mandalorians rushed her. She swung her lightsaber in a defensive pattern, hoping to buy time to recover from the two blasts she had just taken. But it didn't work as well as she had hoped. One of the Mandalorians hit her with a kick to her damaged knee. She cried out as her knee buckled, but she managed to stab her lightsaber towards one of the Mandalorians that was assaulting her. Her aim was true and her blue blade ran right through the unfortunate Mandos chest.

Her satisfaction at that accomplishment was lost in the next moment, when a punch from the other Mandalorian caught her square on her jaw.

She must have blacked out for a moment because the next thing she remembered was being face down in the dirt. She looked up. Sascha was near her fighting against the four remaining Mandalorians. He was waving his lightsaber around dangerously trying to protect her and give her time to recover, but he wasn't mobile enough for his defence to last for long. Nara ignored her aching body to get to her feet, just in time to see Sascha go down. One Mandalorian had gotten around behind him and kicked out at his good knee. He tried to avoid it, but it landed true, buckling his knee and sending him crashing to the ground.

With a cry, she jumped up to her feet and swung her lightsaber around in a 360 degree arc, hoping to get the Mandalorians to back off and to give Sascha enough time to get back to his feet. It was partially successful. The Mandalorians did back off, but Sascha stayed on one knee, his eyes glassy and distant. He's done, she realized. That meant that she would be done rather soon.

"Enough of this. I'll handle it myself." Coren's voice.

Nara could fuzzily make out Coren pushing through a pair of Mandalorians to get to her. Nara brought her lightsaber down from over her head towards Coren. But she was either too slow, or Coren was too fast because he caught the hilt of her lightsaber in his left hand as she was trying to bring it downwards. And with his right hand, Coren drove his fist directly into her stomach.

She moaned loudly as the air was driven from her lungs, but she willed herself to stay up. She redoubled her efforts to push her lightsaber downward. But whether Coren was too strong for her, or she had just been weakened by all the events of the past few hours, she couldn't over match Coren's one arm with her two.

Then Coren punched her again. This time it was an uppercut that snapped her head upwards. The next thing that Nara felt was falling. Nara went down hard, her lightsaber falling from her slackened hands. This time she wasn't going to be getting up. But the Mandalorians didn't care, they swarmed her while she was down, kicking her in the midsection with their armored boots.

The first solid kick that she took drove the remaining air from her lungs and probably broke a couple of her ribs. The next impact she remembered was someone stomping on her chest with their boot. She would have cried out if there was any air in her lungs from which to cry. The next impacts felt like knives driven into her side. How long the beating last she couldn't quite say.

When the Mandalorians were done with their beating, she rolled onto her side, her face pressing against the dirt and ground. Her chest started heaving, as her body tried to get air flowing back into her body. Tears were flowing from her eyes, that was how much pain that she was currently in. There were no thoughts of fighting back or thoughts of anything besides the amount of pain she was in.

She had lost track of Sascha during the last few moments, but she saw him again now. He was down on the ground, not moving. A couple of Mandalorians were pelting him with kicks and he was not really defending himself in a cogent manner. He was clearly down and out.

Her attention was forced away from Sascha when she felt something cold and sharp pressing into her neck. Coren's knife. She willed her body to be still, but she thought that she could feel his knife pressing, just slightly, into her neck, just puncturing it slightly. All it would take was a single flick and Coren Vox could end her life. But it seemed like she was worth just enough to keep alive, for now. Coren just wanted her alive long enough so he could kill her in front of his Master.

Nara tried to find a cutting remark or phrase that would show her bravado, her lack of fear of death. But she couldn't find the words to say, nor the bravery to say them. And the truth was, she didn't want to die.

"Stay down, little girl. Now you know how a true warrior fights." Coren turned and picked up her lightsaber. Nara pawed weakly, drunkenly, trying to grab it back, trying to summon it back to its rightful owner. Coren kept it just out of her reach, toying with her as if it amused him. "I should kill you, you know. You killed Esmer Faxi. He was a good Mandalorian, a good man. He was worth ten of one of you Jedi whelps."

Nara closed her eyes and decided that she would play dead. It really didn't take much acting skill. She thought that she might just pass out anyway regardless of her intention.

Her choice in the matter was taken away when Coren used the hilt of her own lightsaber to knock her into unconsciousness.


	60. Chapter 60: The Battle for Ubrora, Part5

**LordDarthYoda** \- I know that joke is funny (and I laughed) but it does go to show that I've used that trope a bit too often. It's something I'm going to keep in mind going forward. As for your question, I don't think Jango would like these guys. Jango always struck me as having something of a conscience (Boba, not so much) and Coren Vox is pretty much bringing the whole Mandalorian name into disrepute. Though Jango was friends with Aurra Sing and Hondo Onaka so...he wasn't exactly a paragon of integrity either.

 **Mr. Insane -** I think any situation where your a hostage is never 'good' but they could have easily been dead instead of hostages so thats certainly a silver lining. I think Coren just wants the hell off Ubrora, and you can't really blame him!

 **SpeechBubbleMe** \- Vash is certainly not a 'goes down with his ship' sort of captain, that's for sure. *cough* Coward *cough*

A/N - So this chapter was supposed to be the end of the battle, but as I was editing it, I just hated the way that it ended. It was just too abrupt. On Monday I finally got an idea which I quite liked for ending this whole thing in a more satisfactory manner...but it wasn't enough time for me to write fully. So I have to leave you with another cliffhanger, for which I do apologize. But I'd rather take my time and publish something good than publish something incomplete just to 'finish' something. And I hope you do too. So the battle for Ubrora concludes with the next chapter.

Anyways, all reviews, follows, and favourites are deeply appreciated as always.

Please enjoy the next chapter.

* * *

 **Chapter 60: The Battle for Ubrora, Part Five**

Aurine Brynar had observed on many different occasions how nerve fraying it was to experience a fight through a connection in the Force. She could generally get a sense of how the fight was going for Sascha through their connection and today was no different. In short it was going badly. As her connection to Sascha weakened, she knew that was shorthand for him losing the fight.

Aurine clenched her hands into fists. Why couldn't this speeder go faster! It was so immensely frustrating to be removed from this battle. She was supposed to be with her Padawan, fighting by his side, not racing to his aid!

"They are losing the fight," Tiplee stated matter-of-factly. The worst part was, she was right.

"How far away are we?"

Tiplee grimaced, "Too far."

Her connection with Sascha continued to weaken as her Padawan took what she could only assume was a vicious beating. She wondered what would happen when he died. Would her body go cold? Would she be driven to madness, to rage?

"They won't kill them. At least not Sascha," said Tiplee as if she could read her mind.

"Why not?"

Tiplee was driving a bit slower now, Aurine noticed. Perhaps she had accepted the inevitable. Or more likely, Nara's dimming presence in the Force had made it more difficult for the Rishati to find her way to wherever the battle was. "Why won't the Mandalorians kill them the first chance they get?"

"Because they need leverage to get off this planet. I don't know where the ship that they took to get to Ubrora landed, but I can tell you its not in the middle of this forest. Maybe they left their ship on the _Reprisal_. Maybe its somewhere else. Short story is they are likely trapped."

"So they take the Padawans hostage." Aurine winced as through the Force she felt Sascha took what felt like a crushing blow. And then a couple more. If she had to bet, she would have bet on him being incapacitated at this point, if not outright unconscious.

"They may still kill Nara, just to hurt me. But Coren is a vicious one. He'll want me to suffer. So for that reason, I think she might be safe...for the time being."

Those were some dire words being offered by Tiplee. Aurine wished that she could say that this was the first time Sascha had been captured and close to death, but it hadn't. He'd also been captured by the fanatical fallen Jedi known as Weliss. That encounter had almost ended terribly for Sascha. She had saved him at the last possible moment from a certain demise. She'd sworn not to let that happen again, but here she was.

"The Padawans have been defeated," said Tiplee as she brought the speeder slowly to a halt.

A lump formed in Aurine's throat. "I agree," she said. Sascha's presence in the Force was now terribly spotty and consistent with him being unconscious, or close to it.

 _My poor Padawan, beaten to a pulp again. Why kind of Master are you_? thought Aurine.

She shook that thought out of her head. The assigning of blame could come later, "What's our next move?" she asked Tiplee.

"We head towards the _Emerald Dream_ and see if we can cut the Mandalorians off. I think that is where Coren Vox will go. He'll see if the ship can fly."

Aurine nodded, "You're the one that knows Coren. I'll call Pravin and see if I can get the exact coordinates."

But before she could do that, her comlink rang. She looked at who the call was from. It was from Nara's comlink. She froze for a moment. There was no way that was actually Nara calling them. That meant the call was from Coren Vox. Aurine signaled to Tiplee to pay attention and put the call on speaker.

"Coren Vox, I presume," she said.

"Well done, Jedi," said the accented, metallic voice of Coren Vox. "I'll get straight to the point. I have something that belongs to both of you, so I'm going to pull from the Jedi playbook. I want to negotiate. You want your Padawans back. I want off this rock. I'm sure we can come to an agreeable compromise."

Aurine looked at Tiplee. The Rishati was tense, almost seeming as if she was ready to pounce. "We want _both_ Padawans, Coren."

"Yes, I assumed that would be part of the deal. Which is the only reason your insolent Togruta apprentice is still alive," remarked Coren coldly. "Though I admit she is a bit...damaged at the moment. Probably best if she got some medical attention relatively soon."

It didn't take a genius to see through Coren's threat - Either give in to what I want or the Togruta gets it. And if you delay, well, Nara might just die anyway. All the cards were in Coren's hand, and the Mandalorian knew it.

"Do you want to discuss terms now or later, Coren?" asked Tiplee.

"Oh I think negotiations are better in person," Coren said dryly. "Meet us at where the ship of yours crashed. The two of you should come alone."

The call ended with a click.

"Well. I suppose that makes this simple," said Aurine.

Tiplee stayed silent, motionless.

Aurine cast a worried look at her partner. "Tiplee?"

"I should offer myself in exchange," she said quietly.

"Excuse me?"

"I should offer myself to Coren in exchange for the lives of our apprentices," Tiplee said. "He'll accept. Coren is motivated by revenge. He'll want to exact his revenge against me. We could just give it to him."

Aurine held her hands up, "Hold on. Tiplee, we can't actually be thinking about giving _in_ to Coren. The man was a wanted murderer and escaped criminal _before_ he came to Ubrora. Now he's arguably a war criminal. The fact that he has our Padawans is irrelevant. He must be stopped and brought to justice. There will be no trades. There is only us getting our Padawans back and bringing him to justice. That is the only way this end.s"

Tiplee's jaw worked but she said nothing. For once, Aurine thought that she saw things clearly. She would do just about anything to protect her apprentice, or any Jedi really. But while in a perfect world, she and Tiplee would be able to bring Coren to justice while saving their apprentices, they had to be logical about all this. They couldn't just let Coren get away. It would be unfathomable. But they had very little time to plan this out. The longer they delayed, the longer Coren had to change his mind.

"Tiplee, are we on the same page here?" she asked.

The Rishati took a moment and then finally nodded, "Yes. Our priority is the Padawans, but not at the expense of letting Coren go."

She clasped Tiplee on the shoulder, "We can do this. We are Jedi Knights. They are the scum of the galaxy."

Tiplee grinned and slapped herself on her chest, "Sometimes I do feel like I need to be reminded of that. Lets show those Mandalorians why the Jedi always beat Mandalorians. Call Pravin. I have a plan."

* * *

After a short, trip where Aurine had to tell Pravin to put a hold on whatever reinforcements he had arranged to be sent (which seemed to greatly confuse the General), the Jedi made their way to the _Emerald Dream_ 's crash site. It really wasn't difficult to track where the _Dream_ had crashed. All they had to do was follow the many, many trees the the _Dream_ had knocked down during its decent.

When they found the _Dream_ itself, Aurine could see that the ship was dotted with the dying embers of a few fires, though most of the fires appeared to have extinguished already. The front end of the ship showed significant damage, and at the halfway point of the ship it had almost cracked in half. Only the ship's toughness had saved it.

Standing a fair distance from the ship were the Mandalorians. There was only five of them now, so either one was being kept in reserve, which Aurine discounted as unlikely, or the Padawans had managed to...subdue one of the Manadlorians during their brief battle.

Just in front of the Mandalorians were the Padawans. And they were in rough shape.

Sascha was in a kneeling position, a blaster pointed at his head. By the way he was swaying on his knees, Sascha was conscious, but only in the loosest possible sense of the word. Blood was visible on the main part of his robe, and a cut from just above his eye was dripping down his face, off his nose, and to the ground. His right eye also appeared to be swelling closed. It might have been the most damaged she had ever seen her Padawan, and it made her both angry at those that would inflict harm to her Padawan and angry at herself for letting it happen.

Nara was in worse shape than Sascha. Nara had been laid out on her back just in front of the Mandalorians, her eyes closed and her breathing shallow. Nara's face was bloodied and swollen and her robe was ripped, torn and dirty. The Togruta was clearly unconscious and if Aurine had to bet, she had been so for some time. At some point things switched from 'being temporarily knocked' to 'in a coma' and Aurine feared that Nara was currently into the latter category.

Coren Vox stepped forward and held a hand up, Tiplee took that as the signal to come no further.

"Turn off the speeder," called Coren through his amplified voice.

Tiplee complied.

"Exit the speeder but do not approach. You will stay there while we discuss terms," said Coren as he lazily sauntered over to Nara's prostrate body and poked at Nara's midsection with his right boot, "Or the Togruta gets it."

Off to her left, Tiplee was trying very hard to restrain her anger. Hate was almost visible in her eyes. And a bit of fear, probably coming from her having to watch her motionless apprentice. Aurine reached out and touched her shoulder lightly, a signal to stay calm. Tiplee's eyes locked with hers and she nodded. The Rishati's eyes turned back to normal.

She returned her attention to Coren. "What are your terms, Coren?" she asked. "We can have a ship come down upon your request."

"Good. I will require a ship with a hyperdrive and no tracking devices 'cleverly' installed on it. I will require it in the next ten minutes. Once the ship is inspected and meets with my specifications we will take the Padawans with us until we reach a safe distance from Ubrora. Then we will release them into an escape pod."

"And what assurances do we have that you won't just take our Padawans and jump to hyperspace?"

Coren crouched, "My word."

"Your word is worth nothing, Coren Vox," sneered Tiplee.

"Bold words, Jedi Knight Tiplee. And yet I have not killed either of your Padawans when it was in my power to do so," he said reasonably. "And I am making a deal with a Jedi which I would like to carve into tiny pieces. So either my word is worth something and we make a deal, or my word is worth nothing and I execute your Padawans and then we fight."

Tiplee started slowly sliding off to her left, which was a signal that they had agreed upon before hand would signal that they would fight. That suited Aurine Brynar just fine. However, she decided that she would try to play a bit of a delaying tactic. "I agree with your idea in principal. As a show of good faith, give us one of the Padawans. You will still have a very valuable hostage."

Coren went over to where Sascha was being held up. The Mandalorian ran an armored hand through his hair in a mockery of a comforting gesture. "No. I will not release either of the two whelps to you. As a show of good faith however, I will return their lightsabers to you. Here, catch." Coren took the two lightsabers that he had been carrying and threw them lazily towards the two Jedi Knights, clearly not intending for them to reach all the way to them. The two lightsabers got stuck in the muddy ground and came to a halt.

If that action had been designed to provoke the two Jedi, Coren would have to be be disappointment. "May I take out my comlink and call for a ship?" she asked.

"You can, but remember..." Coren drove his fist into Sascha's unprotected midsection. Sascha's eyes bulged for a moment, then seemed to roll back into his head as he collapsed backwards into the dirt. "If you do something I don't like your Padawan pays the price."

Watching Coren Vox be so casually cruel to a pair of teenagers that he had captured only underscored to Aurine what had been obvious since the beginning. There was no negotiation in good faith with Coren Vox. Only a delaying of the inevitable confrontation.

Aurine withdrew her comlink and mimicked speaking into it. What she and Tiplee were really doing was preparing their opening move in this battle, a Force push. But not just any random Force push like she could almost do in her sleep, but a push that was both wide enough in terms of area and strong enough in terms of force to buffet back all five Mandalorians significantly. If they managed a good enough push together, it would allow Aurine and Tiplee to close the distance between them and their Padawans and get into a position to protect them. That was the first part of their plan – protect the Padawans.

The second part of the plan was to subdue Coren Vox, by any means necessary.

Aurine continued to speak animatedly into the comlink, trying to buy time.

In the Force, Aurine found calmness and strength. She also found the strength of her compatriot. Tiplee's focus was completely laser sharp. It was the focus of a predator tracking her prey. That all encompassing desire that made predators like Rishati so very dangerous. And Rishati turned Jedi Knights even more so.

To compliment Tiplee's focus, Aurine brought another emotion that focused her. Compassion. Compassion for the two injured Padawans. Compassion for a world that so desperately needed to be free of thugs like Coren Vox. And even compassion for herself, for the person that she had lost during these past few weeks.

The Force emerged from her and Tiplee like a tidal wave, ripping up parts of the grass as the pure energy flew towards the unsuspecting Mandalorians. Their titanic Force push lifted both the Padawans and the Mandalorians from the ground and flew them several metres backwards. All the Mandalorians landed hard, because they had been given no way to anticipate being lifted off their feet and flown for a fair distance. Sascha, who had at least been able to sense the push coming, had curled into a ball to try to prevent taking any further damage. But Nara...Nara was simply a rag doll and the way that she landed, she probably broke her left arm in the fall.

As soon as the Force push had been completed, the Jedi charged. Aurine raced forward with all her will powering her. She flew like a sand panther after it had rustled its prey out of hiding.

But Tiplee was faster still.

The Rishati flattened her body out as she ran, making her far more aerodynamic than Aurine could ever be. After only a few seconds of sprinting, Tiplee had outpaced her by almost 40 feet. Then Tiplee jumped towards the two Padawans like a champion long jumper, covering what was a frankly insane amount of distance amazingly quickly. By the time that the Mandalorians recovered from being unceremoniously pushed back by the Force, Tiplee was standing guard over the still-unconscious Nara Nalto and daring anyone to attack her. Aurine, who was not quite as swift as Tiplee, managed to get into a similar position above Sascha not too long thereafter.

For a moment, there was a standoff as the four other Mandalorians looked to Coren for instructions. Aurine thought that the Mandalorians might choose to flee and fight another day. Then Coren pointed towards them, "Kill them all! Take out the Jedi and their whelps! For Mandalore!"

"For Mandalore!" the others echoed.

The Jedi said nothing. For there was nothing to be said.

For a thousand generations, the Jedi had fought against the Mandalorians. Sometimes in out and out wars where billions died. Sometimes in little skirmishes like this. This was another chapter in the epic history that was the Jedi-Mandalorian feud. Insignificant in historical terms. But very important to the current participants.

Coren Vox cocked something on his vambrace and fired it towards her and Sascha. Aurine grabbed the scruff of Sascha's robe and dove away from...whatever Coren was firing at her. Knowing how varied the sorts of weapons that Mandalorians carried it could have been anything from a poison dart to a flechette thrower.

It turned out to be a sonic blaster, and Aurine had just been prescient enough to drag herself and her Padawan out of its range. Sascha was still curled into a defensive ball, and one quick glance told her that he was still totally out of it. Conscious but only vaguely aware of the world around him.

As she muttered a silent apology to her Padawan, she continued to hold the scruff of his robe and leapt towards Tiplee and Nara, carrying Sascha behind her like a sack of vegetables. She made it there in a single bound and not so gently laid Sascha next to Nara. Then it was time to turn and deflect blaster bolts as she joined Tiplee in defending their defenseless Padawans.

Out of the corner of her eye, Aurine saw Coren preparing to use his sonic blaster again. _How many charges does that thing have?_ Aurine wondered. Most Sonic blasters could only be used four or five times before it needed to be recharged, which was why they had never become a practical weapon. But Tiplee was prepared with a counter, hitting Coren with a small Force push that knocked Coren's arm off of it's intended target. Instead of blasting the Jedi, Coren leveled a small tree in the distance with his sonic blast.

"Tiplee, go! I'll defend the Padawans," she shouted to her friend. Simple battle calculus. Tiplee was the better fighter, and was probably fresher than she was, judging by how effortlessly the Rishati had sprinted to her Padawan's defence. And if they let the Mandalorians surround them both and fire away with all their weapons, they were going to be in for a bad time. Thus it was time for Tiplee to attack.

The Rishati didn't need much encouragement as she bent her knees and then launched herself at the closest Mandalorian closing the distance between them with alarming rapidity. The Mandalorian, his armor made up of panels of red and gold, tried to use his jetpack to escape the incoming Jedi. But Tiplee was ready for that, and as the jetpack took the Mandalorian off the ground, Tiplee too took flight, jumping into the air and meeting the surprised Mando in the air. The Mandalorian fired his weapon wildly and missed. Tiplee did not.

But Aurine couldn't pay attention to her compatriot for very long because she had a couple of very angry looking Mandalorians bearing down on her. The first, whom she immediately dubbed 'Greeny' for the green and black colour scheme of his armor, tried to take a shot at Nara, who was of course still laying prone on the ground. Aurine went to one knee to deflect the blast away from the Togruta and then spun to deflect another laser bolt that had been headed towards Sascha.

"Fight me, not the young ones," Aurine growled loudly.

"No thanks, Jedi filth," said Greeny, as his partner in crime, who Aurine classified as 'Orangy' for his orange and brown plated armor, started flanking her by circling to her left.

That was bad. In a normal fight, she could have just chosen to rush one of the two Mandalorians and hopefully had success that way. But she was rooted to this particular position because Sascha and Nara had were right behind her and they needed to be protected. _Gotta make my defence work as my offence,_ she thought.

The two Mandalorians opened fire at her, firing from two very widely different angles. Aurine whirled her blue blade around to parry the incoming bolts. Her body was tired, but with her mind completely focused on the task, she was able to fight through her fatigue. The awkward thing in this battle was that she was completely rooted in place, and she had to parry blaster bolts that would obvious miss her, but may have ended up hitting the two Padawans.

Then, her opportunity came when one of 'Greeny's' shots came towards her. Without consciously thinking about it, Aurine angled her blade across her body and directed it towards 'Orangy.' The redirected shot caught the unaware Mandalorian right in the kneecap and sent him down with a shout of shock and pain. The Mandalorian curled into a defensive position, massaging his wounded knee.

This was the moment that she needed. She concentrated and unleashed a Force push towards 'Greeny.' It connected, though with much less power behind it than she had anticipated. But it was enough to knock him off his feet, which was all she had been intending to do. With 'Orangy' down, Aurine leapt high into the air and towards 'Greeny' as he tried to recover. The Mandalorian managed to roll out of the way of her downward strike, but as Aurine landed, she simply swing her lightsaber around in an arc. This time, there was nowhere for 'Greeny' to go.

Her lightsaber extinguished his life.

By the time she had managed that feat, 'Greeny' was reaching for his blaster and trying to aim it at the Padawans.

Aurine realized that she had little time, so she did something desperate – she threw her lightsaber at him.

Her blue-bladed lightsaber tumbled end over end and for a moment she thought that she had missed her target and would have to watch the Manadlorian blast either Nara or Sascha to their deaths. But her aim was true and her lightsaber sheared though the Mandalorian's right arm, and then part of his torso. The Jedi Knight recalled her lightsaber to her hand and marched over to the fallen Mando and promptly (and mercifully) ended the wounded warrior's life.

That last effort seemed to drain the remaining adrenaline from her body and she sank to one knee. This area of the battlefield was quiet. But that wasn't right...Aurine looked around. There was a fourth Mandalorian on the ground that featured a lightsaber wound right through his heart. But where was Tiplee? Where was Coren Vox?

Where in the Force had they gone?


	61. Chapter 61: The Battle for Ubrora, Part6

**LordDarthYoda** \- Yeah you've pointed out the obvious weakness of the way this has broken down, but I did feel like I needed to close the Coren/Tiplee rivalry in a more direct way. I think there a hundred different permutations of how you could have done this final battle, and this might not have been the best one, in terms of suspense, but it was the one on one showdown I wanted to write.

 **Mr. Insane -** I think I've fallen on the 'Sascha gets his butt handed to him' enough times. I've come up with some more creative ways to show how he's in peril in later books.

 **SpeechBubbleMe** \- I think all readers should want Tiplee to kill Coren. I don't know if that would be the best thing for her (killing people in anger is a dark side thing...)

 **IonTheChosenOne** \- Thank you! As someone who played clarinet in band (not a marching band, fortunately) I think I can understand how much that sort of practice will take out of you.

A/N - At long last the end of the battle for Ubrora (but not the book itself). Sorry this chapter was a bit later than usual!

Anyways, all reviews, follows, and favourites are deeply appreciated as always.

Please enjoy the next chapter.

* * *

 **Chapter 63: The Battle for Ubrora, Part Six**

Jedi Knight Tiplee had been in many fights in her life. That was just part of being a Jedi. Jedi were peacekeepers, but to keep the peace, sometimes you had to unsheathe your lightsaber and fight. But she couldn't remember a fight where she had been so emotional. To be fair, there was a lot to be emotional about.

She was fighting a rival of hers, one that had almost killed the two people closest to her, Tiplar, her sister and now Nara, her apprentice. And Coren just plain infuriated her on a deeply personal level. He was a man that was cruel just to be cruel, a man that knew what the proper way to conduct himself was, and simply chose to act otherwise. These were the type of people that brought disrepute to society as a whole, brought chaos where there had previously been order and otherwise disrupted the lives of good, decent people.

The fact that Nara had been badly hurt also made her emotional. She, like every other Jedi Knight that took on a Padawan, had pledged to protect her apprentice. And then she had failed at that. Unlike Aurine and Sascha who had a well known tendency to come out of their missions with more cuts and scrapes than they started, she and Nara hadn't faced that much physical adversity. They had been in close spots before and tough fights, but they had both walked away with minor damage. Now on Ubrora, her apprentice had been close to death two, maybe even three times. It was galling. It galled her that she had _failed_.

But emotion could be a powerful motivator. Jedi were supposed to be calm and balanced, but that was more of a platonic ideal of a Jedi than how it actually worked. Controlling emotion was indeed part of being a Jedi, but controlling meant knowing how to funnel into positive energy and not letting it become negative.

And Tiplee knew how to channel her emotions.

So when Aurine gave her the go ahead to go on the attack, she was totally and completely ready for it.

She sprung towards Coren Vox, swinging her lightsaber at him in a broad arc. Coren was equal to her, using his jetpack to get away from her blade. Tiplee would have loved to continue pursuing Coren Vox, but Coren's companion chose that exact moment to unleash his flamethrower towards her. Tiplee flattened herself out, getting away from the stream of fire. Then she dropped and rolled as the Mandalorian tried to track her with his gout of flame.

Tiplee was beginning to feel the fire literally nipping at her heels when she decided that her evasive maneuvers needed to get more elaborate, or she needed a way to get the initiative back. She decided on the former, getting back to her haunches and executing a short backflip to get out of the range of the flamethrower.

No sooner had she landed on her feet, she was forced to bring her lightsaber in close to her body to deflect the incoming blaster shots from Coren Vox. Coren's shots, as always, were fired in tight, precise groups. One-two-three. Pause. One-two-three. Longer pause. One-two-three- _four_. All his shots, Tiplee parried away. But now the other Mandalorian was getting ready to fire at her and Tiplee had no desire to be a stationary target for shooting practice. So she took one step towards Coren, feinting that she was going to rush him, then she pivoted hard on her plant foot and sprinted towards Coren's compatriot.

For whatever reason, Coren's companion didn't react as fast as Coren had. Like a fencer, Tiplee thrust her lightsaber towards the flatfooted Mandalorian. She missed once, as the Mando managed to twist out of the way. She didn't miss the second time.

Her lightsaber struck the Mandalorian with a surgical strike, piercing the man just where the heart was located.

The Mandalorian fell, mortally wounded.

It turned out the Mandalorians did have hearts after all, if only biological ones.

Tiplee had been so preoccupied with dispatching Coren's friend that she had failed to realize that Coren had stopped firing at her. She found out the reason for that a second later.

It turned out that Coren's vambraces not only concealed a sonic blaster but a grappling line. One that he managed to fire and wrap around her torso. Before she could free herself with her lightsaber, Coren activated his jet pack and before she knew it, she was going along for a ride with Coren Vox.

Tiplee shifted her shoulders and tried to free her lightsaber but she was wrapped up tight. Her arms had been caught pointing downward, so her lightsaber was pointing directly towards her foot. She just needed to get some room for her wrist so she could cut through this cord that was wrapped around her. But it was proving to be more difficult then she had thought it would be.

Then she realized where Coren was flying towards. _This isn't good_ , thought Tiplee. Coren clearly intended to let the environment work for him. Coren flew overtop the forest, but with her dangling from the grappling line, she was in the trees themselves, getting swatted by branches, leaves and thorns.

But as Coren dropped her lower, she started getting buffeted by the trunks of the trees themselves. At first, she was able to prepare herself for the impact, and was able to brace herself by using her legs to bounce off the tree trunks. But inevitably her being entangled in Coren Vox's grappling line meant that she couldn't avoid solid contact for that long.

Tiplee collided chest first with a tree that she hadn't seen coming. Her breath left her all at once, and it was only by luck that she didn't slice off her own leg with her still lit lightsaber. She decided it was time to turn that off, because it was more of a threat to her than it was to anyone else at the moment. But she also needed a plan to how to get free from this bind. The easiest way to do so would be to get her lightsaber free, then she could simply slice the line and free herself. But even that would be risky because being cut free would send her flying free twenty to thirty feet above the ground in a crowded forest, not exactly a great situation. But neither could she afford for this to be going on much longer, because eventually Coren was going slam her headfirst into a tree and that was going to be all she wrote.

Tiplee wriggled as she was being attacked by branches, pine needles and tree trunks, and eventually she got her lightsaber free. And then she cut herself free of the cord.

And then she fell.

In a stroke of luck, as she fell, she realized that she was falling towards a newer sapling that had not yet reached the height of its other brethren. Tiplee grabbed on to that newborn tree with both hands and used it to slow her decent, grasping on to the main trunk of that young tree and sliding down the trunk. The tree repaid her by gouging her with it's needles, cutting open new cuts on her fingers and hands. When Tiplee was close enough to the ground, she released her hold, and pushed off the trunk with her legs, giving her distance from the tree. She landed on the ground, having to bend her knees deeply to absorb the shock of the landing. Tiplee was cut bleeding and battered, but she had survived. She took a deep breath and thanked her luck and her training for letting her survive. And the Force. Always the Force.

It was a slightly awkward situation now though. She had no idea where Coren Vox was. For all she knew, he was going to return to the main battle and was going to turn the tide of that engagement. She had no way to get back to the main battle herself, besides sprinting, and she was pretty sure that she didn't have enough energy available to do that. She was just so...tired. She had fought one major battle today, and managed to come out relatively unscathed, but she had still expended a bunch of energy in doing that. Then had come this fight, and now she had about a hundred different little cuts and scrapes on her body, thanks to Coren Vox. Tiplee's energy meter was now tipping towards empty.

But she couldn't let Coren just return to the fight and polish off Nara. She had to make herself a target. But how?

"Coren Vox," she shouted, using the Force to project her voice. "I'm still alive! So I challenge you, one warrior to another! Let's finish this!"

Appealing to Coren's ego was probably a bad idea. But Coren probably felt backed into a corner. He had no easy way off the planet. It was possible that all he would be looking to do is to execute his fantasy of revenge against her.

Fate was clearly on her side today, as she heard the distinctive whine of a jetpack coming ever closer to her. Knowing that Coren was potentially heading towards her, she ignited her lightsaber and dropped into a defensive stance. A few moments later, Coren Vox emerged from the trees to her right and fired his sonic blaster at her. Tiplee, caught slightly off guard by Coren's sudden emergence, got pushed backwards and fell clumsily onto her backside.

Coren followed up his first attack by firing his blaster rifle at her. Tiplee stayed on her backside and deflected the bolts, trying and failing to direct them back towards Coren. The Mandalorian floated to the ground and landed. Tiplee suspected that Coren was running low on fuel for his jetpack and wanted to save it for a time when he needed it. But that provided her with enough time to scramble back to her feet.

The two combatants paused for a second. Tiplee knew that only one of them would be coming out of this fight alive. There was going to be no running away, no miracle save from a third party, just Mandalorian vs. Jedi, Dark vs. Light, Male vs. Female.

Coren tossed his blaster rifle aside and drew his twin blaster pistols. A smart move, Tiplee judged. The rifle was a more powerful weapon, but power was not needed here. The Rishati started circling to her left, edging closer to Coren without him realizing it. She had to get close to Coren to use her lightsaber, Coren wanted to keep her at a distance and fire away with his pistols and whatever tricks he had up his sleeve.

So what did she want to do, she asked herself. Take a risk? Use a trick? Or trust that fighting with discipline would see her through? Mentally she assessed the fight. Coren can see that she was hurt, so he would favour a longer, drawn out fight. And he was probably right in that regard, so she had to be quick and decisive. But Coren knew how she fought, so he would have already developed a plan to combat it. So she needed to be unpredictable. But unpredictable how?

 _Don't fight like a Jedi. Fight like a Rishati_.

Tiplee grinned, a feral, toothy smile that she rarely used, mostly because it made people uncomfortable. It made people think that she was considering them to be their next meal. She had no qualms about showing it to Coren Vox.

She locked her lightsaber into the 'on' position and threw it towards Coren. Then she charged.

Coren got out of the way of her flying blade as she had known he would. But she had temporarily seized the initiative by doing something unexpected and throwing her weapon at Coren. Now she was going to fight like a Rishati - up close and personal with fists and feet. Yes, the lightsaber was the weapon of the Jedi and an effective tool, but it concealed the truth from people. And the truth was _she_ _was a weapon_.

Tiplee grabbed on to Coren's arm and attempted to throw him over her shoulder. She was partially successful. She did manage to bring the Mandalorian over her shoulder, but Coren, showing great agility, managed to get his legs underneath him as he fell and instead of landing on his back, landed on one knee.

But Tiplee wasn't deterred by this temporary setback. Mandalorian armor was weak at the joints, she recalled. So her next blow was aimed at Coren's knee. Coren was able to get his leg out of the way, but was yet to fully recover. Like a whirlwind, Tiplee didn't reset before throwing her next blow. She needed to be on the attack constantly because if Coren was able to get his bearings back she was currently without a lightsaber and would be extremely vulnerable. Her next blow landed clean to Coren's left elbow, popping it with enough force that she probably broke his arm, even through the armor.

Coren grunted but replied with a gauntleted fist that clipped her just above her temple. Stunned, Tiplee staggered backwards, but before Coren could draw his pistols again, she flew at him with a kick. The kick caught Coren square in the chest and drove him backwards, though he stayed on his feet. From there, the Jedi and the Mandalorian exchanged kicks and punches. Tiplee landed two blows for every one of Coren's but Coren was wearing armor, and his blows _hurt_.

Tiplee felt herself fading as she fought. She had expended nearly everything she had today, and it was all catching up to her. Another couple of punches and it would be done. So she threw herself into a final, vicious flurry. She started with a palm strike that caught Coren underneath his helmet and jolting it upward. Then she brought her knee into Coren's groin. Tiplee didn't care how much armor there was in that area (some) or that it could be considered 'fighting dirty.' Results were all that mattered.

Coren Vox didn't fall over, but he did whiff the punch that had been heading towards her head. And he was clearly stunned by the blow. So Tiplee took advantage, thrusting four fingers on her left hand underneath Coren's helmet and into his neck. Coren gurgled as he reacted to that precision blow. Then Tiplee grabbed Coren and threw him to the ground, hard. With Coren down, Tiplee punted Coren wherever his armor seemed to have weaknesses, and then she mounted the Mandalorian, popping his helmet off his head and firing lefts and rights into Coren's head. Punch after punch landed until Tiplee was satisfied that Coren Vox had been adequately battered into submission.

Tiplee stood, bone weary and near exhaustion. She reached out her left hand and tried to recall her lightsaber with the Force. It took her too tries to do so. But when she finally did, she pointed the blade at Coren's chest.

Coren, his face showing the aftereffects of her assault looked at the blade and then up at her and sneered. "Do it, Jedi. Execute your _justice_." Coren made the word sound like an expletive. "Judge, Jury, Executioner." He spat, "Jedi."

The part of her that was a feral hunter really wanted to do it. She wanted to sink her serrated teeth into Coren's neck and have him bleed his life away into the Ubroran soil. That was all a thug like him really deserved.

But that was not who she really was, for yes, she was a Rishati, but she was a Rishati Jedi. She straightened, "No. You are my prisoner Coren Vox. You will stand trial for your many crimes."

Coren rolled onto his side and propped himself up on his elbow. Tiplee followed him and kept her blade at his chest. Coren coughed and spit out some bloody phlegm, "No jail can hold me. I have friends that will come and find me and break me out, just as before. Face it, Jedi. I'll spend three years in jail at most and then you'll have to hunt me down again."

"You think you will be held in a Ubroran jail, Coren?" She laughed loudly, "You didn't get the memo, did you? This planet is joining the Republic. Part of joining the Republic is that high-risk criminals such as yourself can be handed over and held in high-security prisons. You won't be held on Ubrora. You'll be held in a prison so top secret, so remote that no one will even know where you are, let alone be able to rescue you. You want to talk about justice, Coren Vox, scourge of Ubrora? I will let you live, Coren. As a Jedi I know that each being is special in the Force. But that does not mean I grant you freedom. No, I take it from you, scum. You have _squandered it_. I call that justice."

For the first time Tiplee could remember, Coren Vox was stunned into silence. Perhaps he was contemplating living the rest of his life in a location so bleak they didn't get true sunlight. Whatever Coren's deepest nightmare was, he was probably living it right now.

Tiplee however, had a more pressing concern, she needed to get out of here and to a medic before she collapsed. She sorted through her robe, trying to find her comlink. When she found it, she tried to press the activation button, but the device wouldn't turn on. Annoyed, she shook the device and tried to inspect what was wrong with it.

That momentary distraction was all Coren had needed to draw his knife. A long, serrated dirk that had probably tasted the blood of many of Coren's enemies. Tiplee instantly recoiled away. But Coren took his knife...and drove it hard into his own stomach, through the mesh part of his armor. Mortally wounded, Coren Vox fell on his back, his dagger falling from his hand.

Tiplee stood there for a moment not sure what to do or why that had just happened. Coren had given himself a fatal wound, of that she was sure. But the dying would be long and painful. It didn't look like he had hit any of his vital organs with his stab, so he would just lay there, bleeding out, until he died. Unless she did something about it. It looked like Coren Vox really did not want to go back to jail.

"Do it, Jedi." Coren managed. His tongue and the interior of his mouth was red with blood.

Tiplee hesitated, at war with herself. A part of her felt that Coren didn't deserve mercy, didn't deserve to have his suffering ended. How many beings had Coren tortured and killed over the years? Surely the souls of those beings would love to watch Coren Vox's life slowly slink away.

But Tiplee was a Jedi Knight. And she respected life. Even Coren's. She made eye contact with Coren and nodded, " _Ni su'cuyi, gar kyr'adyc, ni partayli, gar darasuum,"_ she said _.  
_

Coren heard the words and understood them. For she had spoken Mando'a, the language of the Mandalorians, a language she had learned when she had been assigned to arrest Coren Vox all those years ago. She had said 'I'm still alive, but you are dead. I remember you, so you are eternal.'

Tiplee swung her lightsaber in a swift stroke. Her aim was true.

She turned and walked away from the grisly scene. She had killed Coren Vox in single combat. But she hadn't kill him with hate in her heart. She had killed him with mercy and compassion in her heart.

The Jedi way.

* * *

Aurine knelt beside her Padawan who was trying to crawl over to Nara. She gently put her hand on his shoulder, "Sascha. It's okay, it's over."

The strength in Sascha's arms gave out and he collapsed to the ground. Gently, she rolled him over on to his back. Force, he looked terrible, she thought. His eyes were dull and unfocused, his right eye was swelling closed and he had a couple of open cuts on his face as well. "I'm okay," he managed, "help Nara."

Aurine glanced over at the comatose Togruta. Nara looked badly beaten up, and obviously needed medical attention, though she really didn't get the impression that Nara was close to dying or even in danger of doing so. The Togruta's breathing was slow but stable and while she was still unconscious, her skin colour hadn't degraded much from its usual hue. At least not yet. "I'll get the medics to come."

Aurine withdrew her comlink, and dialed Pravin. The victorious general answered, "Master Jedi?"

"Pravin. I need a medical team at the location of this comlink. Quickly."

"I have a team in the area. They'll be there shortly."

"Thank you, Pravin." She hung up.

Aurine cast a glance around, looking for Tiplee. The Rishati and Coren Vox had disappeared form the battle and she hadn't the faintest idea of where she actually was at this point. She debated trying to find and assist her, but decided that the best thing that she could do right now was to make sure both Sascha and Nara were delivered to the appropriate medical personnel. Maybe then she could assist Tiplee.

Sascha tugged weakly at her sleeve, "Go check on Nara. Please."

She used her other sleeve to dab away some of the blood on Sascha's face, "Okay."

Aurine went over and knelt at Nara's side and did much the same as she did with Sascha, brushing away some of the blood that was already starting to dry on her face. As she did, Nara's eyes started fluttering weakly. A good sign for Nara's recovery. Aurine put a calming hand lightly on Nara's forehead, "It's okay Nara, you're safe."

Nara whimpered softly in pain. Well, thought Aurine, it was usually not that bad a sign when someone that was hurt was audible about it. It was when someone went silent that you had to worry. Gently, and cognizant of Nara's broken arm, she rolled Nara onto her side and into a recovery position. Nara groaned audibly again, a low growl of pain and discomfort. Aurine gently patted Nara's cheek, "Nara, can you hear me?"

The Togruta's eyes fluttered slightly stronger this time, but then stayed closed. Damn, this girl was out colder than a freezing day on Hoth, thought Aurine. And that was _not_ particularly good. But the good news was she was breathing fine, and that she didn't appear to be going into shock, which had been her main worry. Still, Nara needed a doctor, and sooner rather than later.

Aurine was trying to decide what to do next when she heard the sound of an approaching ship – music to her ears. The ship was an odd design, it looked almost like a gunship. Large and squat the gunships had two main guns at the front and not a lot else. The sides of the ship swung open and several soldiers in battle armor emerged, then some white coated medics followed the soldiers out.

Aurine waved down the doctors, "Over here!"

The soldiers formed a perimeter around the three Jedi, their attention focused outward while he medics swarmed the two young Jedi immediately. One even came over to check her out. She swatted the well intentioned but misguided medic out of the way, "Not me. The Padawans."

"Ma'am, you are clearly injured," the medic insisted calmly.

She stood and pushed him aside with a forearm. "I'll rest when my colleague returns. For now, work on them," she said, pointing at the two Padawans.

The medic looked uncertain and glanced towards an approaching figure. The man was on the older side, his hair a shock of grey-white, but the man was still in good shape. "Listen to the Jedi, Hari. She's a tough one, I know from experience." The man's voice was calm, melodious.

"Excuse me, do I know you?"

The man offered her a tight smile, "I doubt you would, but you were once a patient of mine. I treated you after you were wounded on Narvis Rock."

"Doctor Jarvis?"

The older man smiled and bowed slightly, "Indeed. Doctor Hyram Jarvis at your command, Master Jedi Aurine Brynar."

Aurine was speechless for a moment. Doctor Jarvis had been the doctor that had treated her after she had been disastrously ambushed on Narvis Rock. She probably owed him her life to some degree. But him appearing on Ubrora was...random at best.

One of the medics treating Nara called out, "Hyram, we need to move the Togruta. She's stable but she's beat up bad. She needs a bacta bath at least."

"How's Padawan Whitestar doing?" Jarvis asked one of the other medics.

"It's like he's been in a speeder wreck, Hyram. No serious injuries, but I'd like to scan for internal bleeding."

Hyram Jarvis turned to face her, "Do we have your permission to move the young Jedi to our triage center?"

She nodded, "Of course. I will stay here and search for the other Jedi Knight."

The Kuati doctor looked at her as if she had lost her mind, "Have you seen yourself in a mirror lately, Master Jedi? You maybe the least hurt, but you are _hurt._ "

"I am still a Jedi Knight. If a battered one," she replied.

Hyram Jarvis rolled his eyes, "As you wish, Master Jedi. I will take the two young Padawans into my care."

Aurine nodded, "Thank you."

Jarvis signaled towards his medics and they started gently lifting Sascha and Nara onto stretchers. Aurine felt bad at leaving the Padawans behind, but she'd feel worse if she left Tiplee to battle Coren Vox on her own. Aurine sunk to her knees and tried to drop into the Force so that she could find where Tiplee was. But she found that she was so exhausted that she couldn't manage it. And if she couldn't manage that, she was as good as useless in a fight. She shook her head, got to her feet and started heading back to the gunship.

She took one last look back towards the forest, as the gunship warmed its engines up to take off again. The gunship started lifting off the ground, when Aurine saw something, "Wait! STOP!"

Emerging from the dark of the forest was a bloodied and battered Jedi Knight Tiplee. The Rishati's face was covered with cuts and the lower part of her robe had been torn off, leaving her bare below the knees. She managed a couple of staggering, unsteady steps before she fell softly to her knees.

Aurine and a couple of the Kuati troopers jumped off the gunship (that was only a few feet off the ground) and rushed towards the battered Rishati. Embarrassingly, the armored troops actually managed to out sprint her to her compatriot.

"Tiplee, are you okay?" _You look like hell_ , she almost said.

"I've been better. But I'll live," said Tiplee weakly. She looked at the troopers that were with her, "Could a Jedi ask a favour and have you carry me to your ship?"

One of the soldiers, who was a bit bigger than the others, simply knelt and picked Tiplee up, carrying her as a mother carried her child.

Aurine almost laughed. It was a ridiculous picture. A Jedi Knight being handled as if she was an overgrown child. Something to laugh about later, she decided,

The group started heading back to their ship. "What happened to Coren Vox?" she asked.

Tiplee closed her eyes, "He will trouble us no more."

"So we won?"

"We have won, my friend. Tell me, how is Nara?"

"She's been beaten pretty badly, but she's with the medics. I believe she'll be fine, but the recovery will probably be pretty long."

"I think we'll all need a few weeks to recover," Tiplee said, as she started to doze off.

"But we won the day. Somehow. Some way."

"Sometimes, the Force is on your side. Today the Force was very much on our side."

Aurine smiled and looked at the sky. It was a beautiful day on Ubrora. The sun was shining and there were only a few small clouds that were visible. Tomorrow would also be a beautiful day on Ubrora. For it would be the first full day on a free Ubrora.


	62. Chapter 62: Resting Up

**LordDarthYoda** \- I mean spoiler alert, the good guy or girl wins :). I want to show Tiplee as something of a more feral and animalistic sort of fighter than usual and fighting with kicks and punches is kind of like that. I think that to make each character unique you have to sort of show it through actions as well as words - so we have Tiplee, the refined diplomat at the start of the mission, beating a Mandalorian half to death with her bare hands at the end of the mission. It's a contrast, but its also a useful one to show.

 **Mr. Insane -** I think this was a complicated story because there were a bunch of character arcs (each of the main Jedi had one to some extent) But the Sascha-Nara friendship was my favourite to write and I think that showed. I do think the Ubrorans will be eagerly hoping for some sort of reparations from the Republic to rebuild their world.

 **SpeechBubbleMe** \- I mean, it might be my upbringing, but committing suicide (which is roughly what Coren did) is generally considered to be the cowards way out and not honorable. Of course the samurai would disagree with that, so I admit there is a lot of ways to see what Coren did. It was a sort of an appropriate end as far as Tiplee went though.

 **TheAdamBomb505** \- I added a little bit in this next chapter to address this question (because it was a good one!) That's why I welcome feedback, sometimes it cues off a good idea in my head and I can add it in!

A/N - Into the denouement. Probably ~2 chapters left before I do an epilogue. As always the epilogue will preview the next book!

Anyways, all reviews, follows, and favourites are deeply appreciated as always.

Please enjoy the next chapter.

* * *

 **Chapter 62: Resting Up**

Aurine Brynar woke up from a deep, peaceful slumber and realized that she had no idea where she was. The last thing she remembered was flying back to the triage station along with the Kuati medical team. Maybe she had fallen asleep? Or asked to be sedated? Whatever had happened, it was clear that she was currently in a hospital bed.

Unfortunately in her life, she had come to know the sights, smells and sounds of hospitals fairly well. Across the galaxy hospitals were kept in a fairly standard manner with only minor differences between them. The walls would always be painted in some light, calming colour, usually some sort of blue or beige. There would also be an overwhelming sense of...cleanliness, from the air to the walls to even the datapads that the doctors would carry around, everything was just kept spotless.

Aurine sat up from her bed and stretched out her neck and shoulders. Both were rather sore. In fact _she_ was rather sore all over her body. Not exactly surprising, given the battle she had just fought, but still unpleasant to wake up to.

She looked around the small room. The only other bed in the room was occupied by Sascha. He was sleeping peacefully, his chest slowly rising and falling in rhythm. The fact that he wasn't hooked up to any sort of monitoring device she took to be a very good sign. Still, she could tell that he had some injuries left over, just from the bulges she could see under the sheets – one was across his chest, that would be to help with the recovery from the broken collarbone, an injury that would take a while to heal. The other was on Sascha's right leg. Aurine didn't know what specific injury Sascha's leg had taken, but again, it would probably take a while for him to get back to one hundred percent.

She looked around and on a nearby table, she saw that someone had left her datapad out for her. As it was slightly out of reach, she had to exit her bed, get up, pad over and go back to her bed. By the time she was settling back into her (very comfortable) bed, she sensed someone nearing the door. A few moments later, it opened revealing a tired but still energetic looking Doctor Hyram Jarvis.

"I thought you might be awake," the Kuati doctor said. "How are you feeling?"

"Sore. Where are Tiplee and Nara? What is their status?"

"Tiplee and Nara are both recovering. We had to operate on the Togruta after a scan revealed that one of her broken ribs had punctured a couple of her internal organs. It was a bit touch-and-go for a little while there, but she will be fine. I do wish I could have given her more time in the bacta tank – I think she is in for a long recovery. But she'll make a full recovery"

"Where'd you get the bacta tank from?" Ubrora, somewhat infamously, had never saw fit to import bacta.

"It came from the same place I did. The _Kuati Victory_."

A missing piece of the puzzle finally clicked into place for Aurine, "The ship that fought the _Reprisal_."

The Kuati doctor nodded, "Yes. A special, 'volunteers only' shakedown mission for one of our new prototype capital ships. I didn't see much of the battle, of course, but I'd say that she passed her shakedown run."

Aurine has many more questions that she'd like the answer to right now, but she wants to focus on the health of her fellow Jedi first. "How is Tiplee?"

"Battered and bruised. She lost quite a bit of blood during her fight and has been kept mildly sedated since then. I would have woken her up earlier, but it has been a busy time...there have been so many wounded..."Jarvis trailed off.

The Jedi Knight closed her eyes. It was easy now to focus on the victory that she had spearheaded, but it would be foolish to lose sight of the many that had paid the price to make it possible. "How bad was it?"

"It was war," Doctor Jarvis replied simply.

Aurine supposed that explained everything. The only thing there was to do was move on. "And Sascha? How is he?"

Jarvis shrugged, and smiled, "What, he isn't always like this? Beaten within an inch of his life?"

"He's gone on many missions where _neither_ of us pick up anything more than a scraped knee," she said, suddenly feeling defensive.

The doctor continued to smile, "I am sure of it. It only seems like in my limited interactions with both of you that you tend to be on the _wounded_ side."

Aurine smiled, "I should take from your joviality that Sascha is not seriously hurt."

Jarvis started ticking off points on his hand, "Broken ribs, partially torn meniscus in his knee, concussion, minor damage to internal organs, _especially_ his liver so make sure he's not imbibing alcohol in the next few weeks..."

"...I doubt that will be a problem."

"...and finally and most crucially...a broken pinky toe."

Aurine laughed loudly, a free, throaty laugh like she hadn't had in a long time, "Will he ever walk again, doctor?" she asked melodramatically.

Jarvis laughed, evidently not able to keep a straight face anymore, "But seriously, he does have a broken toe. Make sure it heals properly."

The Jedi Knight nodded, "One last question...why can I not remember what happened to me after I got on that gunship? I don't think I fainted."

Jarvis looked embarrassed as colour entered the cheeks of the older man, "I may have injected you with a sedative without your permission."

"When was that?" It shouldn't have been possible for someone to do that to a Jedi Knight.

"Right after you got in the gunship. I figured it was a test of sorts, either you had your wits about you and you'd stop me from sedating you, or you didn't and you needed to be treated without this 'I'm a Jedi and cannot be hurt' nonsense."

Aurine tried to be angry, she really did. But the Kuati doctor was just so earnest and well meaning. Besides, everything had clearly been under control by that point...and she had been exhausted. "I recommend that you don't make a habit of sedating Jedi, Doctor Hyram Jarvis."

The doctor bowed, "I have been warned."

"Could you send in someone that can tell me what has gone on in the..."

"...Three days."

"...Three days since the battle?" Force, she had been out of it for a while...

"I will find someone that can speak to you. I will contact General Ecalt. He's on the base raising morale of the wounded troops," Jarvis' eyes twinkled, "He's quite the hero now you know. I heard that he's already been contacted about turning his life story into a holomovie"

"I'm all for it," said Aurine "As long as they get Wynissa Starflare to play me. Remind me to tell Pravin that he should include that as a condition."

Jarvis gave her disbelieving a look. Wynissa Starfare was very pretty and lithe, not exactly her body type. Or hair colour. Or eye colour. Or skin colour. Okay, she didn't look like Wynissa Starflare at all. A girl could dream about being played by the galaxy's most famous actress, right?

She put a hand on her face, "Just get Pravin, please?"

The Kuati doctor bowed and withdrew.

She spent the next few minutes calmly meditating, trying to find the status of her body. She was clearly on the mend, but that did not mean her body was ready to do much more than sit in this bed, walk around and eat. Which was fine. Her apprentice was right here beside her snoozing peacefully and her mission was if not complete, than very close to it. For once, she had time to spare.

It might have been fifteen minutes after Doctor Jarvis had left when Pravin Ecalt marched through the door, followed by a shorter, older version of Pravin Ecalt, a person that she recognized as Ravar Ecalt, head of Ecalt Industries. Pravin was dressed in military style fatigues and still looked rather tired, though there was certainly an air of confidence about him now. Ravar dressed plainly in a dark blue tunic and black pants. The only indication that the older man was extremely well off was an impressive ring around his right ring finger that featured a few prominent jewels.

Aurine started to get out of her bed to greet the two Ecalts, but Pravin put both his hands out to stop her, "Please, stay in bed Master Jedi. Should we keep our voices down to not wake the Padawan?"

Aurine glanced over. Sascha showed absolutely no reaction to the new entrants in the room. "Nah, I think he's still under sedation for a while longer. I doubt we could wake him."

Pravin shook his head, "Those two Padawans did so much in that battle, I am very glad that both survived."

"How old is your apprentice?" asked Ravar. "The last time I saw you, _you_ were the apprentice Master Brynar."

"That was a much dumber, much younger version of myself, Mr. Ecalt."

"Just call me Ravar, please."

"Thank you. Sascha is seventeen, as hard as that is to believe." Seventeen and he's been through a lot, she almost added. But she couldn't be more proud of her Padawan.

Ravar looked at Sascha's peacefully sleeping form, "I don't think I'll ever get used to seeing teenagers as Jedi. In my teenage years all I cared about was girls and trying to win sports championships with my school. These two Padawans helped save a world." Ravar laughed lightly, "And I wonder about my sanity sometimes when I wake up sometimes and feel inadequate."

Aurine smiled. The humility from Ravar was not false, but it was clearly intended to put her at ease. "I understand that. I think that freeing Ubrora will probably end up being the most significant achievement of my career. But I will gladly return to the Temple and accept another assignment."

"When you recover," said Pravin.

"When I recover," she acknowledged. "But for now, please fill me in on all that has been happening since I have been sleeping." She turned her attention to Ravar, "I assume you are responsible for bringing that Kuati ship to Ubrora."

"I managed to get a good deal," said Ravar. "Turns out the Kuati ruling family felt that it owed the Jedi Order a favour. You wouldn't happen to know anything about that, would you?" Ravar asked innocently.

Aurine marveled that the Kuat family could be roused to do anything that wasn't self-serving. But they had been complicit in almost killing three Jedi, including both Sascha and Tyra (and herself), so one could see how that would be something they'd like to make amends for. "I think the Kuat family's debts to the Jedi have been paid, if such a debt even existed in the first place."

"I'm sure the Kuat family will be pleased to hear it," said Ravar. "But the story is simple, I got my son's message and I decided to do anything in my power to help him, and that meant approaching anyone and everyone about finding someone that could lend me a warship. In the end Kuat answered the call...though I paid them well for their services. It was not a bad investment," said Ravar thoughtfully. "I think the Ubrorans will be very interested in buying many of my products, it could be a good market for Ecalt Industries."

Pravin rolled his eyes, "Not everything is about _business,_ father."

Ravar took the insult good naturedly, "This was about economics, Pravin. I've spent a lifetime trying to teach you the difference, but it appears you still don't get it." Ravar sighed and turned his attention back to her, "The fight against the _Reprisal_ was a tough one. We were actually getting the worse end of things up there – I probably shouldn't have bought into all the Kuati propaganda saying that this ship would be the equal of anything that it came up against."

"But the tide did, shift thanks to the military history lessons I kept trying to input into your brain," Pravin said.

"What kind of lesson?" she asked.

"That the bow and arrow has never quite gone out of style," replied Ravar. The Kuati briefly outlined his strategy for the _Arrow_ and how it had all gone to plan, resulting in the _Reprisal's_ downfall.

"A very unique strategy," she said. Aurine gestured to Sascha, "I'm sure my Padawan would love to hear the details later, he's always been fascinated by fleet tactics."

"I shall make a note to have Captain Kuat forward her battle report to the young Jedi," said Ravar.

Aurine had one more important question about the fleet battle, "And what happened to Vash Varless? I assume you took him prisoner?"

Pravin smiled tightly, "Vash Varless came to a more...poetic end than that. See he tried to escape the _Reprisal_ on an escape pod and he managed to get to Ubrora...but his pod malfunctioned and he landed in the middle of one of Ubrora's oceans."

"So? Why didn't someone go out and get him?"

"Oh we tried," said Pravin. "But do you remember why the Ubrorans never developed cities by their oceans?"

Aurine racked her brain back to Tiplee's opening briefing all those days ago, "Something about some very dangerous pack hunter that roams the ocean. Deadly things. Ten feet long, mostly made of teeth. They hunt in packs. I don't remember what they are called though."

"They are called Krakthurs. The Ubrorans mostly call them the terrors of the deep though," said Pravin. "They hunt by smell and by their sonar. So when Vash's pod landed in the ocean..."

"The Krakthurs come searching for some tasty prey," said Aurine. "But that doesn't yet explain what happened to Vash. His pod could float and keep him safe."

Pravin nodded, "Don't you see the obvious conclusion? We came to rescue Vash, but he could see our ship incoming, so he decided that he would try to swim to a nearby island and try to escape us. He...uh...didn't make it. The Krakthurs did."

"Ubrora got its revenge on Vash Varless," said Ravar quietly.

Aurine grimaced, "I would have preferred the revenge of a fair trial and a long incarceration, but I suppose I can see the irony of Vash's demise."

"Trust me, Master Jedi, I was disappointed to learn of Vash's death as well," said Pravin. "Tyrants like that deserve to be put on display so that everyone can see what monsters they were and so that alternative histories don't get written about them. Vash was a monster. But he died in the teeth of monsters. Perhaps the galaxy was trying to tell us something."

"That it hasn't lost its sense of irony?" inquired Ravar

Aurine snorted, "The galaxy has always had the most perverse sense of irony. Trust me on that one."

Pravin nodded, "I suppose that is true. Just a few seconds ago I called my former employer a tyrant and a monster. I worked with him for years. And yet I am now considered a war hero." He held his hands out, "Irony at its finest."

"I can hardly disagree with that. I'm glad you chose to walk this path Pravin...it suits you," she said.

Pravin hesitated for a moment, "May I ask a question?"

Aurine spread her hands wide, "Pravin Ecalt, I have nothing better to do today but to sit in this bed and answer your questions." She settled back into her (small but comfortable) bed, laced her hands behind her head and leaned into the pillow.

Pravin smiled at her reaction, "My question was about when we first met. You made a remark about me being braver than I knew. How did you know that, Master Jedi? Was it just the Force giving you intuition?"

"The Force sometimes will provide me with general...feelings about someone. A general perception. I could see that you were warring with yourself, that you were unhappy with the direction that your life was taking you. I prodded you gently at that point because I knew that idea would get into your head. I couldn't foresee all of," Aurine spread her hands wide, "this happening, but I think I got the sense that you were somehow crucial to the fate of Ubrora."

"In fairness, this Jedi was only telling you what I had been trying to tell you for years, Pravin," commented Ravar.

"But if I had listened to you then, I couldn't be here now," Pravin pointed out. "This was clearly my path, my destiny."

Ravar shook his head, "I keep telling you that there is no such thing as destiny or the will of the Force or any junk like that..." Ravar trailed off upon realizing that he may have insulted her.

Aurine was far beyond reacting to such insults. "Don't worry, some days I'm not sure that _I_ believe in the will of the Force. Sometimes providence is just coincidence writ large."

The two Ecalts shared a look, "Perhaps we can save the philosophy for another day," said Pravin.

"I guess there's one last thing to tell her," said Ravar.

"What's that?"

"That you are currently on a Republic world. Ubrora has been provisionally accepted into the Republic as of yesterday evening," said Pravin.

"Who signed on behalf of the Republic?" By tradition only senior diplomats such as a Jedi could sign such an important treaty.

"Captain Alesi Kuat, of the Kuat Defence Force signed on behalf of the Republic," said Ravar. "As a distant member of the Kuati royal family, she was deemed to be a senior enough Republic official."

"I believe the official document still has space for Jedi Knight Tiplee to sign, when she is able to," said Pravin.

And just like that, her original mission to Ubrora had ended while both Jedi Knights assigned to the task were asleep. Talk about ironic.

But it was a good step for Ubrora. The Republic would no doubt (after some wrangling in the Senate) send help to the planet to assist it in the rebuilding process. Some more charitably minded planets, like Alderaan, would no doubt work to send aid as well. It also meant that the Ubrorans would be protected from outside invasions. Though they were rare, they had just seen evidence first hand of how it could occur.

There was also a host of fringe benefits like technology sharing, access to a large free-trade market, and so on and so forth. In short, it was going to be a good time to be a Ubroran. She just hoped that the Ubrorans could manage the transition so shortly after fighting a damaging war.

Which brought her to her next question, "President Mollek is going to continue in his job?"

"He indicated that he will be overseeing the rebuilding of Ubrora, but seems to want to step down sometime in the next few years," said Pravin. "Which is a shame, because he's shown himself to be a capable leader."

"Maybe he'll find his way to the Senate," she mused.

"I thought only children worked at the Senate," commented Ravar.

"The Senate _does_ get things accomplished, despite the common perception that they do nothing," said Aurine. The Jedi Knight had her own reservations about the Senate, but they didn't deserve to be casually denigrated like Ravar was doing.

"Your experience differs from mine, Master Jedi," Ravar muttered under his breath.

"Moving on," said Pravin, clearly deciding to play the diplomat. "The only other thing that you might be interested in is that President Mollek has issued a full pardon for those that supported the invasion?"

"Wow," said Aurine, for lack of something better to say.

"I believe that I was fairly crucial in helping President Mollek come to that decision," said Pravin. "He told me that he planned to have the main helpers of the invasion brought before a special tribunal that would be in charge of hearing their cases and levying punishment. And I told him that if he was going to do that, he'd have to put me on trial first."

Ravar clasped his hand on his son's shoulder, "That's leadership right there. I'm proud of you, Pravin."

"Thanks dad. But it was the only thing I could do. If others were put on trial and I wasn't, the process itself would be unfair. Justice must always be...well... just"

"I agree," said Aurine. "And I don't think Mollek was thrilled with the idea of putting a Ubroran war hero on trial."

"Certainly," said Pravin. "The collaborators have, by and large, been named and shamed, their lives are ruined. Mayor Boikana has resigned his position, citing that he wants to be with his family. Arslan Ivalice's name has been floated as his possible replacement, but he hasn't said if he's interested in the position. In any event, there will be an election when there is time to have an election. Now is the time to rebuild. And as President Mollek said to me yesterday, 'Ubrora will have to heal, but it must heal not by focusing hatred on those that supported the invasion, but by focusing on what we can learn from it.'"

"He's got a good mind for speeches," said Aurine. "As well he should, since he's been giving morale-boosting speeches for weeks now."

Aurine did approve of the decision that the Ubroran President had made, as shocking as it had been at first glance. A blanket amnesty would allow the world to focus on the future instead of being focused on the past. Some would disagree, of course, but Mollek was popular enough that a slight dip in his popularity wouldn't really hurt him. He wondered if Sascha and Nara, would feel the same way as she did.

"So what does the future hold for both of you?" she asked.

"I'll be doing some negotiating of business deals," said Ravar. "But I'm having some of my best people make their way here without securing a deal, but I don't think that will last. President Mollek has also asked me to chair what he's calling the 'Ubroran Rebuilding Fund.' I hope to funnel charitable donations from off world corporations through this new charity. I think with my name attached to it, that we can get some good donations rolling in."

Aurine smiled and nodded, "A worthy goal, Ravar. I wish you all the best."

Pravin tugged at the sleeves of his shirt, "I've signed a one year contract to stay as the head of the Ubroran military. It will be a challenging job as we both have to decommission many of our ground troops and basically completely rebuild our navy. I hope to be able to have a framework in place that my successor can take over within one year. I intend to return to work for my father at the end of my contract though. A nice cushy head of security job title sounds good."

"And selling the rights to your life story for a nice sum so they can make a holomovie about you sounds good too?" she teased.

Pravin laughed, "Who told you about that? Heh, It doesn't matter, I'm not interested in having my life glorified."

"You could donate whatever you make to your father's new charity," she pointed out.

Pravin looked thoughtful, "That might be a good compromise."

Ravar put his arm around his son's shoulder, "We should be going now though, we have lots to do and we should leave you to your recovery."

Aurine got out of bed, resenting how hard that simple action was. She offered her hand to both Ecalts, who shook it, "I'm sure we'll see each other soon, but I want to say thank you on behalf of myself, my Padawan and the Jedi Order. Me, Tiplee, Nara and Sascha owe you our lives."

"And I owe my lives to all of you," said Pravin.

"Let's just call it even, Pravin."

"An agreeable concept. Come on father, we must be going."

Ravar Ecalt bowed slightly, "A pleasure to meet you again, Aurine Brynar."

Aurine bowed her head in acknowledgment and both Ecalts left the room, leaving her all alone with Sascha. She limped over to his bed and ruffled his hair, just because she hadn't been able to do that in a long, long time. Then she carefully smoothed it back into place.

Then she clambered back into her bed and pulled out her datapad. "Now for the most fun part of the mission, the post-mission report," Aurine commented dryly. It would probably take her a couple of days to summarize all the craziness that had happened. But the Council would want it for their records, that was for sure.

Whether or not they believed anything that she wrote was another matter entirely.


	63. Chapter 63: Good Times, Good Friends

**LordDarthYoda** \- I mean your theories were good, but this story was bound to take a dramatic right turn when the invasion came. Although I dropped a few hints earlier in the story (either Aurine or Sascha made a comment about the Trade Federation disarming in a much earlier chapter), it was pretty out-of-left-field. Your criticisms of my previous worked also helped, because I made sure that everything sort of followed in a logical manner. No plot threads were being brought up and then suddenly discarded for no reason.

 **Dragonpwner6 -** Well, I didn't want to be too explicit with it, but they died in the explosion when their ship blew up. That whole chapter was kind of just to show that people didn't forget about our heroic Jedi after they fell off the map - and to give readers false hope for their rescue...

A/N - One more chapter after this, then an epilogue/preview (Unless I think of something else I need to add to the story.) Thanks for all the views lately - this series is actually doing better than ever at this point, which is pretty crazy to think about.

Anyways, all reviews, follows, and favourites are deeply appreciated as always.

Please enjoy the next chapter.

* * *

 **Chapter 63: Good Times, Good Friends  
**

Sascha Whitestar was starting to be tired of being doted on. He had been woken up from his medically induced slumber yesterday morning with his Master right by his side. And she basically hadn't left it since. Which had been nice, for a while. If he made a comment about being hungry, she went and got him food. If he was thirsty, she fetched water. If he was in pain, she went and flagged down a doctor.

He appreciated the effort. But all he really wanted to do was rest. Eventually he started faking falling asleep, just so he could get some time to himself.

By this morning, he had hoped that Aurine would have started acting more rationally again, but nope, she brought him a huge breakfast from the cafeteria (Even though he had said he wasn't hungry!) It was getting to be too much. One of the things he liked about his Master was that she wasn't a micromanager. She gave him autonomy, generally speaking. But this was hover-mom Aurine. And he did not like this version of his Master. So he decided that he would have to broach the subject and address the root cause of why she was doing this. Around lunchtime Sascha decided he would dive right in.

He sat up in his bed and folded his hands across his stomach. Aurine was in her own bed, sitting on top of the covers as she was typing on the datapad, but once she saw him move, her focus swiveled from the screen to him. As if he couldn't be trusted to sit up in his own bed without her supervision. Annoying.

"Master, you don't have to be here every second of the day. I know the drill when it comes to recovery. Lots of rest. No straining yourself. I get it, I have lots of experience in recovery." He had certainly gotten the tar kicked out of him this time, but no worse than he had been on Kuat or on Bothawui. This was old hat for him.

"I'm just trying to make sure you have everything you need, Sascha."

It's an earnest reply and he doesn't begrudge it. But it not really the true reason she's doing this, he knows. "Master," he said calmly, "I know why you are doing this. You blame yourself for me getting hurt. You're trying to make it up to me."

Aurine's face scrunched into an expression of incredulity, "I'm doing what?"

"We drifted apart during this mission, Master. I haven't seen you in more than a month. Now you're trying to make it up to me by playing this doting...mother-like figure. It's nice...but you can leave me be. I'm not going to disintegrate into a thousand pieces just because you aren't watching me."

His little speech is too harsh, he can tell immediately by Aurine's wounded reaction. But he's still not at one hundred percent mental capacity (recovering a concussion will do that) and he doesn't have his best words right now. These will have to do.

His Master takes her time formulating a reply, and when she does, her words have a thickness, an emotional tint behind them that is rare for her, "I knew we'd have to have a talk. I just didn't want to have it."

"I've got nothing but time, now, Master. Let's talk." His Master had filled him in on the big details of what had happened. Sascha's first question had been about Nara's health. His second had been about Tiplee's. His third had been about Aurine's. It had taken him a while to even ask how badly he'd been hurt, to him that had been one of the least important things to know.

Aurine stared forward, looking at her legs as she sat in her bed, "This mission was hard for me, Padawan."

"It wasn't exactly a stroll in the park for me either," he said. Considering he had almost died on about three separate occasions, that was probably understating it slightly.

"I know. I'm sorry."

"For what?" he replied.

"For abandoning you."

Sascha frowned, "I never felt abandoned, Master."

Aurine rose from her bed, she's upset now, he saw. She doesn't show it in her face, no, his Master is too disciplined for that, but if you know how to read her body language (and he does, he's her Padawan for Force sake), you can see the tension across her body and that textbook little quiver of her lip just before she speaks. Aurine Brynar does not get upset very often, she's generally pretty stable, emotionally speaking, but when she does, emotions tend to pour out. Sascha just had to endure the deluge.

"I treated you and Nara like you were a piece to sacrifice on the dejark board. I started thinking about the war as someone who had to win at all costs. That was the person I became." Aurine paused, "I don't like that person. I want to go back to the person I was beforehand, but to do that I need to apologize to you. I should have never treated you like I did."

"You have nothing to apologize for Master. You used me as you saw fit. I saw through your orders to the best of my ability." He pointed to himself, "Padawan." He pointed at her, "Master. That's how it always works. You give the orders, I try to follow them."

"I should have made sure you didn't have to bear so many risks, so much loss. It almost wasn't worth it." Aurine's hands were clenched into fists as she paced the length of the bed, back and forth like a prowling nexu.

Sascha's not sure that he feels the adulation he is supposed to feel at liberating a whole planet. He figured that might come later when he can celebrate with Nara and Arslan and all of his other friends. But he doesn't need to be lectured about loss. _That_ he feels acutely. The loss of Lirri Boikana had been on his mind since he's woken up. Her planet is free, in large part thanks to her efforts, but she was not around to reap the profits of a peace that was so hard earned. But it wasn't just Lirri that was lost, it was other Ubrorans that had volunteered to fight and ultimately die in service of their planet. It's a fate that Sascha will never get, mostly because he doesn't have a planet to die _for_. The nobility of their sacrifices will always stick with him though. They could have chosen to do nothing. But they didn't.

"I'm not sure there was a better way, Master," he said carefully.

"Of course there was a better way!" Aurine exploded. "I could have had you and Nara moving from city to city, keeping the enemy guessing at where you'd be. I could have gone into the cities myself and become a rallying beacon. Tiplee too. Instead we let everyone know where you were and who you were associated with. It's a miracle that you and Nara survived."

He smiled faintly, trying to lighten the mood, "Our skill had something to do with it."

Aurine doesn't even acknowledge his flippant remark and she sat heavily on her hospital bed, "I should have been better. I shouldn't have lost myself like I did."

"Lost yourself?" He shouldn't inquire further, its clearly a sore subject, but he can't help himself. Ever curious was Sascha Whitestar, sometimes to his own detriment.

The Jedi Knight looked up at him and made eye contact for a moment before looking back down, "I put myself in a position where I started thinking less like a Jedi and more like a military commander. It was...an enlightening experience, but I clearly got carried away in a way that I should not have. I'm going to need to take some time to think about what I did. I need time to think if I am capable of having the responsibility of a Padawan."

This conversation has gotten a bit more serious than he had thought it would. But Sascha met Aurine's emotion with his own cool logic, "I think after having a Padawan for several years that question has basically answered itself, has it not?"

"Padawan, haven't you been listening to what I've been saying?"

"I have," he replied calmly. "This Padawan right here would very much like to keep his Master, flaws and all. The only Master that was willing to pick me to be their apprentice. I don't know if you made mistakes during this mission. I know I certainly did. But being a Jedi is not about _perfection_ , Master."

His Master shook her head, "All I know is that I feel more and more unworthy to have a Padawan."

Sascha can see that this is something that his Master had been contemplating for a while. It's not a simple reaction to watching him get hurt. It's something deeper than that. The war may have fundamentally altered Aurine Brynar. That's bad, to say the least.

"You want time to relax and reflect upon this mission, right?"

Aurine nodded, her posture tense, "Yes. Time alone."

"Take me with you."

Aurine's face screws into a picture of incredulity, "Didn't you just hear what I said?"

"Perfectly, Master. But you are forgetting one thing." He leaned forward, it hurt him slightly even to do that small movement, but he needed to add weight to his next phrase, "We are a team. A Master _and_ a Padawan. You teach me, that's the way it works, but only a fool would say that I don't teach you as well."

That comment raised Aurine's hackles, much as he knew it would. But its important to have her see him as an equal in this conversation, not merely someone being _talked to._ His Master is trying to find the words in her heart to convince him that she thinks is true, that she failed him. He doesn't believe it to be true.

"You want time to reflect on what happened, Master? Fine. But you're taking me with you."

"I want to go alone, Padawan."

"No," he said simply, as if that answered everything. "I will come with you. And if you need space and time away from me, than I will give it to you, but I will not be flung away. I am your _Padawan_. We are a team. We help each other."

A couple of tears started to stream from Aurine's eyes, "You've grown up so much, Sascha. I don't even know if you need me anymore."

"Of course I need you, Master. I need someone to teach me how to stop ending up in hospitals after missions."

Aurine laughed and turned away from him to wipe the tears off her face. Then she began to laugh again. Louder. A couple of moments later, he joined in. He couldn't help himself, the laughter was contagious. Even though the laughter hurt his ribs, he can't stop himself, he doesn't want to stop. He wants to laugh with his Master for hours.

Eventually the laughing fit eased. Aurine slid back into her bed, "I might need to find someone else to help us out when it comes to that."

He smiled slightly, "Okay, Master."

The Jedi Knight paused for a few moments before speaking again, "You know, I feel a little better already."

"Talking to someone you care about often does that," he commented.

Aurine smiled slyly, noting the implicit statement in his remark. "When I talk to the Council, I will suggest that we both be taken off the active duty list for a little while. A couple of weeks, at least."

"Sounds good, Master. Where do you want to go to relax?"

"There are a couple of sanctuary class worlds that the Jedi Order has exclusive rights to. We'll find one that suits us and we'll camp out there for a week or however long we need. It'll just be us, and nature."

Sascha made a face, "Can I bring my datapad? I'll be bored if there is only trees and little critters around."

"You will be more than free to bring whatever entertainment devices you want," Aurine remarked in the tone of a patient mother..

Sascha nodded. He wasn't the type of Jedi that loved communing with animals or nature. He was a people person by default. Spending time wandering some jungle didn't exactly thrill him, though he supposed it would be a nice change of pace. He would just be happy to relax for a while.

"I do need to bring something up though," said Aurine. "Something that became obvious over the course of this mission.

"Nara," he said, taking a fairly informed guess at where this was going.

"Yes. Your resident Togruta friend and you have become...rather close." Aurine's face grimaced slightly, "Have you..."

Sascha held his hands out, "Please, Master. We're friends. And I believe you are right in saying that we've become a big too close to each other. Attached, maybe. I can't speak for her, but I do think we need some space and time away from each other. I think it will help both of us."

"You don't have feelings for her?" Aurine inquired.

Sascha tried not to blush, but wasn't sure if he was successful, "No, Master. She's cute and a good friend. But I don't think I've ever had a romantic feeling towards her. This isn't another Tyra situation."

"Are you sure? I don't want to have to remind you what happened after you got attached to Tyra."

"I don't want to have that happen to me again," he said forcefully. He didn't regret his friendship with Tyra, he did regret burying his feelings for her. He buried them so deep that when they emerged they had overrode every part of him. It had eventually cost him her friendship. To this date, he was yet to see her since that day they had shared their first kiss. The truth was, though it felt like the self-inflicted wound he had given himself had mostly scabbed over, it hadn't left him completely.

"I actually think Nara helped me with the whole...Tyra thing."

"How so?"

He hadn't really had much time to think about it until now, but now that he can focus on things besides his survival and winning a war, he can see how much his Togruta friend has helped him deal with the fallout from Tyra's departure. "I learned that I _can_ have a close female friend without things going too badly, I learned that I'm not destined to develop feelings for them. And they aren't destined to fall in love with me either...because I'm pretty darn sure Nara doesn't have the slightest hint of feelings for me. We're just...friends. A bit too close at the moment, I'll admit, with the whole...sharing all of our feelings all the time thing, but you know in the battle neither of us were desperate to save each other or anything. I'm...rambling a bit here, but you get my point, right?"

His Master absorbed that speech for a few moments, "I think once things calm down for good, me, Tiplee, and you two will have a talk. I am going to try to keep an open mind. But it might be hard for me. So I think I'll let Tiplee be the voice of reason."

"I'll abide by whatever you decide," he said.

"We'll work it out, won't we, Padawan?"

"We will, Master."

* * *

Nara Nalto hated being in bed. Togruta were active creatures, they were supposed to be out hunting, now laying in bed. However, she was pretty happy just to be alive.

She had been brought out of her chemically induced slumber yesterday and had spent almost the entirety of the day (outside of trips to the refresher) in this bed. And she had spent the day being getting caught up with the events that had occurred since she had lost consciousness.

In short. Bad guys gone, good guys won. Oh, and she had almost died on the operating table. That last part was a little tough to swallow, but considering she had no memory of it, it was kind of like it never happened.

Still she was extremely sore from the beating she had taken at the hands of the Mandalorians. The Kuati Doctor, Jarvis, had told her that her recovery would probably take a few weeks. Tiplee had told her that she would complete her recovery at the Temple, whenever they decided it was time to leave Ubrora. Apparently the Ubrorans had some big liberation celebration coming up, and everyone felt it was important that the four Jedi stay until that was complete. A ceremony that would probably see her carted around in a hoverchair wasn't exactly on the top of her priority list, but she supposed she shouldn't complain.

There was a short knock on the door. It was probably her Master, who, for whatever reason, always knocked before entering her room. "Come in."

To her surprise (and delight) it was not her Master that entered, but Sascha, limping on a pair of crutches. Her friend still looked like he'd been in a cage fight with a nexu. There was the obvious crutches, of course, but it was also the half healed cuts that were still visible on his face that was the most visible clue of his status.

"Hey little Togruta," said Sascha.

"Hey Sascha. Now come over here so I can punch you for using that nickname."

Sascha hobbled over and leaned over her bed. She gently reached out with her arm and 'punched' (more of a love tap) him on the cheek. Both Jedi laughed and Sascha managed to slide himself into a chair near her bed, putting his crutches to the side.

"I see your injuries haven't dampened your spirit," he observed.

"Nah," she said as she closed her eyes and relaxed, "All my body parts are attached, my Montrals still work and my lekku are as pretty as ever, so I'm feeling pretty fine."

"You're good? Need anything?"

"Sascha, you aren't in that much better shape than me. I'm not going to send you on some errand. Lets just sit and talk."

"Maybe we should just bask in the fact that we are alive," said Sascha.

"I prefer to celebrate being alive by living."

"There's always time for a quiet moment of reflection."

Nara closed her eyes and faked snoring loudly.

He smiled, "How are you doing, Nara?"

"I'm...hurting...a bit still," she admitted. "I'm also feeling kind of out of it. I think its the drugs."

"I'll do my best to use small words then," joked Sascha.

"Ha ha," she said mockingly. "So what brings you to my room today?"

"I wanted to check in with my good friend," he said. "And I have a comedy series on my datapad I thought you might like to watch."

Hearing those words still seemed surreal to her. Having a real, honest to goodness friend was still hard to get used to. But she was sure that she would enjoy the experience. Being with Sascha was good for her. He calmed her, understood her, and was willing to deal with the more abrasive parts of her personality.

"What kind of comedy series is it?"

"It's apparently Shili's new top comedy series. It stars a bunch of young Togruta during the later years in school. Apparently it's both hilarious and heartfelt. Well, according to the reviews at least. I watched the first episode...and I think there was some humor that I was missing, because I wasn't laughing all that much. I was hoping that you could help me out."

"I will be your Togruta to Human translator," Nara said. She pointed to the wall, "Put it on, Sascha."

Sascha smirked, "As you command, your Togrutaness."

The two Padawans were able to watch a few episodes of the show, which turned out to be a perfect choice by Sascha. The main character was a female Togruta named Auxi that was a maybe a year younger than she was. To Nara's delight, Auxi was a purple skinned Togruta like her – though her skin was a slightly lighter shade than hers, she found it easy to see herself as Auxi, because they looked vaguely similar. At the start of the show, she had just transferred to a new school after her parents had moved back from the colony of Kiros to Shili. The comedy dealt with Auxi and her slightly unorthodox ways that she had learned from the notoriously free-spirited colony of Kiros.

As Sascha had claimed, the show was both hilarious and emotionally resonant. For seventy percent of the episode, she would find herself laughing at Auxi's hijinx as she used her Kiros inspired 'wisdom' (that often went horribly wrong, or was hilariously misunderstood.). Yet usually near the end of the episode, the show often packed an emotional punch, whether it was a beloved teacher leaving for a new job, or a student finding out that their sister had been involved in a speeder crash (she turned out to be okay). It was a well done show though. Nara laughed, she cried, she asked Sascha to pause several times to point out the specific aspects of 'Togruta' humor that he wouldn't have understood.

At the end of an episode, she felt herself drifting back to sleep. "Hey Sascha...this might be the last one, I'm kinda sleepy."

"Okay Nara, I'll turn it off after this episode is done."

Nara Nalto didn't last until the end of the episode. She fell asleep with warmth in her heart and her best friend by her side.


	64. Chapter 64: Celebration

**LordDarthYoda** \- Thanks for the review, it was actually your comment about Aurine changing that inspired the conversation there. Could they have had a messy falling out? It doesn't seem likely. They both need each other, though sometimes they don't like admitting it.

 **Nuada Silverhand -** Thank you so much for the very detailed review! It was a very good read and was generally on the nose. This story has three sort of...phases that don't _really_ work, the Tyra moping, the diplomatic part and then the war. To be honest I don't like the Tyra moping section that much, and if I had to do it all again, I would have had that whole book 2 leave off in a much different manner, mostly because it left me spending a bunch of chapters in this book to clean up the second book's mess, which wasn't great. You're right to say that I probably could have integrated it better into the plot of this book, but I wanted to do a time skip (otherwise I'll be writing 16 year old Sascha _forever_ ). Certainly I agree that it was awkwardly handled. Point noted on the spoilers - I'll endeavour to be less specific. As for next book, we're going to spend...8ish chapters on Coruscant, but it'll be a part of two mini arcs that I really want to write and should be entertaining. Otherwise we'll be off world - I think you are right that doing more of the 'heh look how different Jedi are from normal people' is kind of overdone at this point. Great review and please feel free to chime in whenever, or send me a PM!

A/N - Okay, last chapter and then a Epilogue/Preview on Sunday! Phew! This was a looong book!

Anyways, all reviews, follows, and favourites are deeply appreciated as always.

Please enjoy the next chapter.

* * *

 **Chapter 64: Celebration**

Liberation day, as it had been declared by President Keicho Mollek, turned out to be a beautiful day in the city of Bontha. There were a few clouds scattered in the sky and the temperature was slightly cool, but few in Ubrora would be found complaining. Sascha Whitestar certainly wasn't.

What he could complain about, was limping around on crutches. While it had been explained to him that there was only a limited number of medical hoverchairs on Ubrora and thus they were being reserved for those more injured than he was, using crutches was extremely annoying. And it was especially annoying for him because Nara was floating on a hoverchair not far from him. Should have gotten more injured, he supposed.

He was dressed in his more formal gray and teal robe that had somehow came through the whole war fine. They had been left (along with his Master's emerald robe) in the first house they had stayed at in Ubrora, and they had been retrieved by some well meaning soul and kept safe until now. Sascha was happy to have it back, though Aurine had said that she could have had it replaced if it had indeed been destroyed.

While the celebrations for Ubrora's liberation had been ongoing since the final battle, today's celebration was supposedly special, hence the four Jedi had been requested to be a part of it. Tiplee had wanted to leave Nara behind at the hospital so that she could recover quicker, but she had argued that not being a part of the celebrations would mean that she missed a chance for closure. Tiplee had apparently seen the logic in that, hence Nara being in a hoverchair beside him.

"Everyone ready?" asked Aurine. His Master looked like she was pretty much back to normal, physically speaking. The cuts on her face had almost entirely healed, and she was walking with a barely perceptible limp. She was emotionally back on her usual level as well, joking with him in private and putting on an 'official' face in public.

"I am ready," said Tiplee, as she adjusted her belt. Tiplee's wardrobe was all new – her other robes were either dingy, destroyed, ripped or torn. So a tailor had made her a new set of beige and brown robes with a white belt that apparently wasn't quite the right size. The Rishati was still pretty obviously in the 'recovery' phase of the healing process. She moved around slowly like she was in constant pain, and if Sascha had to guess, she still was. Unlike Aurine's cuts, Tiplee's were still visible on her face, with one particularly prominent cut that he was sure was going to become a scar on her left cheek. Maybe Rishati healed differently, because Tiplee didn't seem concerned about it.

"I'm ready," he said. "Can I discard the crutches for this event? I hate them with a fiery passion."

"How's your knee?" asked Aurine.

Sascha had never had a torn meniscus before, and he planned to never do so again. He could walk, but barely, and doing anything besides limping was likely to re-injure his knee. He suspected it would be another month before his knee fully recovered, maybe shorter if he spent time trying to fix it in meditation. Right now he didn't even have full range of motion in his leg.

"I can limp. That's about all I can do, but I can limp."

"You can limp around for the ceremony, then back on the crutches," said Aurine.

Sascha did a little fistpump as he put the crutches to the side.

"I wish I could limp," pouted Nara. "I'm confined to this chair for another two days," she said unhappily.

"At least you got to swim in the pool for an hour," he pointed out.

"I don't like to swim," Nara said as she crossed her arms across her chest defiantly.

He suppressed a laugh. Over the past few days Nara had seemed to revert back to the defiant, hardheaded young Padawan that she'd once been. But he knew that it was just from not being able to move around much. Her surgical sutures had been removed yesterday, so she was starting to get some mobility back, but Doctor Jarvis had rejected all of Nara's pleas to let her do more physical activity. So Nara pouted about it. But meant that Nara was confined to her hoverchair, which wasn't the worst thing in the world (it did look rather comfortable) for the immediate future.

"Okay, let's go," said Aurine.

The four Jedi filed out of their temporary quarters, the three ambulatory Jedi followed by Nara. They had to walk slowly so he could keep up, but fortunately they weren't going very far – to just outside of the building that had once hosted the banquet that had welcomed the Jedi to the blanket. An event that seemed like it had happened eons ago.

As the Jedi walked that short distance, they could see that temporary bleachers and grandstands had been set up along the roadway. The stands were absolutely packed as far as Sascha could see – he doubted that there was a single Ubroran that was not either a part of this parade or part of the crowd that was watching it.

It didn't take long for one Ubroran to notice the Jedi making the walk towards their destination. And shortly after that, the Jedi were approached by a swarm of Ubrorans. Sascha instinctively dropped to his Master's side, the position he would take up if they were going to be in a fight. He chided himself slightly for being so cautious, but he does feel better with his Master in good position to protect him.

As the mass of Ubrorans approached Tiplee held her hands out and spoke in a loud, clear voice, "We are happy to greet you, but please give us space."

The Ubrorans, without words, made a partial circle around the Jedi, keeping a fair amount of space between themselves and the Jedi.

"Thank you," said one Ubroran, who dropped to his knees and prostrated herself before the Jedi as if he was venerating them.

"We don't..." said Aurine.

"Thank you," said another pair of Ubrorans, who mimicked the first Ubroran, also prostrating themselves in front of the Jedi.

"You don't need to," started Tiplee.

But the trend had already been started. First small clumps of Ubrorans started bowing to the Jedi, then more and more did, until the whole crowd had supplicated themselves to the Jedi.

Then the Ubrorans started a simple, powerful chant.

"THANK YOU."

"THANK YOU"

"THANK YOU"

"THANK YOU"

The words were so loud they reverberated around the nearby buildings, creating a sort of echo chamber that made the chants grow even louder and louder.

"THANK YOU"

"THANK YOU"

Sascha felt tears rolling down his face as he started to cry.. Never in his life had he felt such an outpouring of emotion. In the Force, all he could sense was the sincerity (and yes the thankfulness) that the Ubrorans had four all four of the Jedi. It was overwhelming. So instead of fighting it, he gave in.

He carefully sunk to his knees, protecting his injured knee as he did. Then he joined in with the chant.

"THANK YOU"

"THANK YOU"

Soon after he joined in, both Aurine and Tiplee followed suit, adding their voices to the rising chorus. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Nara lower the hoverchair so that she too was on the ground. Her voice too was added to the chorus.

"THANK YOU"

"THANK YOU"

The crescendo built. Sascha was no longer saying thank you, he was shouting it. He was refilling his lungs only to exclaim again.

Rarely, if ever, had he felt himself get so swept up in something that was far bigger than himself. He had never had a religious experience in the way that true believers of religion sometimes spoke about. This was...pretty darn close to a religious experience. It was just so emotional, so powerful, so spontaneous. No one could have planned it, and if someone had, it would have come off as hokey, and over the top. Only as a genuine outpouring of thanks from the Ubrorans to the Jedi could this moment have worked the way it did.

The chant itself wasn't complicated or catchy. It was just a simple phrase repeated over and over again. But it was that repetition that added power to it. Each repetition showed how thankful the Ubrorans were to the Jedi (and the Jedi to the Ubrorans).

For a while, Sascha wasn't sure what was going to happen first, his voice failing or the chant ending. But eventually the chant started to lose its power, and after a few more repetitions, it faded completely, leaving behind only silence.

The silence stretched for at least a minute and was probably more. He used it to think of the Ubrorans that had given their lives so that he, Sascha Whitestar, could have this moment. He also thought of the Ubrorans that were still living, several of which were now heroes. Arslan, the dedicated backbone of the resistance. Sekac, the quiet but dutiful hunter that had destroyed many droids and had spent much of his time in the resistance teaching his fellow members how to improve their aim. And Ovans, the always outspoken Ubroran that he had frequently clashed with. Thee Ubrorans he would never forget.

Tiplee stood, and broke the eerie silence, "Myself and my fellow Jedi are deeply touched by this spontaneous gesture. I know I will remember it until my dying breath. But you don't need to thank just us. Please spend the time to thank all of those that volunteered to join the army or joined the resistance. Please thank those that could not fight but volunteered in other ways, whether it be monitoring enemy troop movements or treating injured resistance fighters. These people should not be ignored. Your freedom was not bought by the Jedi. You bought your own freedom with your sacrifices. Kindly remember everyone who contributed, not just us."

Sascha poked his Master in her side and she got the hint and helped him to his feet. All around him, the Ubrorans that had supplicated themselves were slowly getting back to their feet as well. Sascha looked to his Master, wondering what they were going to do now. To get to their destination, they'd have to push through a crowd of Ubrorans.

The Jedi started walking slowly towards their destination, and the sea of Ubrorans simply parted to give them room to pass. It was an oddly surreal experience, as the four Jedi passed through a sea of quiet, solemn Ubrorans. Some quietly said, "Thank you," as they passed, while others were silent. Sascha tried to make eye contact and nod at each Ubroran that thanks him, but he found that wasalmost impossible, so every few steps he bowed his head slightly and said, 'thank you,' to the crowd.

Though it took them a while to do so, the four Jedi eventually made their way to a raised platform that had been set up for them. As they approached they were met by President Keicho Mollek, who bowed slightly, "Welcome, Master Jedi. Sorry for the...unforeseen delay."

"It was no problem at all, President Mollek," said Tiplee, speaking for all four Jedi.

"Can I show you to your seats?" asked the Ubroran leader, who seemed to strike the right balance between solemn and energized.

Tiplee gestured to the Ubroran, "Please do. I'm sure you'd like to get things underway." The Jedi were led by President Mollek towards a group of seats on the front of an upraised platform. Already seated were Pravin Ecalt, his father Ravar, Ovans, and Arslan. Pravin was dressed in a military style dress uniform, while his father was wearing what Sascha would guess at being Ubroran designed clothes, the splashes of colour across the chest were just so...Ubroran. And Arslan, well, Arslan clearly had not picked out his own clothes for this occasion. Dressed in a tight shirt and pants combination that overemphasized Arslan's middle aged physique, the shirt was a garish blue and gold number with a high, military inspired collar. The shirt was unflattering to say the least and it stood out amongst the the well dressed people around him.

Sascha sat next to Arslan, with Nara on his left hand side in her hoverchair. He nodded a greeting, "Hi, Arslan."

The Ubroran pulled at his collar, which did seem to be rather tight, "I need to start following the Jedi school of fashion, these clothes are just too tight."

"Well, maybe you can start a new fashion trend," said Nara.

"Of all the things I will accomplish in my life, I don't think that will be one, Master Jedi," commented Arslan drolly.

Sascha chuckled politely, "How have you been, Arslan?"

"Oh, pretty good I think. I don't know what to do with all this...time on my hands now. People have been telling me to run for mayor and while I'm flattered by the attention, I don't know if that is the right fit for me."

"I'm sure you'll figure it out, Arslan. Just take some time to relax before you jump into anything," he said. "You deserve some time to yourself."

"I was thinking of going off world for a while," Arslan said quietly. "I think I might want to see Coruscant. See what all the fuss is about. Might be an interesting vacation."

"It's very different from here. But I think you'd enjoy it."

Nara poked him in the ribs, "Quiet, the parade is starting."

Truth be told, Sascha didn't pay much attention to the parade. Sure it was a spectacle of all Ubrora had to celebrate, with dancers and fireworks and flocks of singers all pointing to the gloriousness that was Ubrora, but he felt strangely detached from it all. He really felt like the real ceremony had take place minutes earlier and this was some sort of bizarre sideshow to it all. Of course he applauded at all the correct times and seemed to pay attention, but his mind was really elsewhere.

Off to his left, he could see that Nara was doing much the same thing as he was, just kind of on autopilot eyes focused in the general area of the parade, but not really focused on anything in particular.

But both Padawans had been trained to sit and be polite, so they sat and were polite. It really wasn't the worst thing to be sitting outside during a beautiful day. Especially as no one was trying to kill him, or his friends. Put in those terms, Sascha actually quite enjoyed being bored for an hour.

As the parade petered to a halt, the main square just outside in front of them filled up to capacity. It looked like almost all of Bontha was present (or at least all of it that could fit into the square.) To Sascha it was all just a blur of colours, it was difficult to pick out individuals beyond the ones that were close to the stage.

President Mollek rose from his seat and moved to a small podium that he could speak from. The holoscreens in the square all showed the Ubroran leader, giving everyone a chance to get a good look at their leader, despite the distance from him. Sascha also noted that there were no security features on the podium. He supposed that President Mollek really had no reason to fear for his safety, but it was something that separated Ubrora from many Republic worlds.

President Mollek started to speak, and Sascha mentally tuned him out. Sure, he was paying attention enough to catch the broad themes of the speech. Mollek talked about reuniting Ubrora, and mending both the world itself and the fissures that had occurred between families. The politician talked about how joining the Republic would usher in a new era of prosperity for Ubrora, but only if they would prove to be up to the challenges they would no doubt face. Blah blah blah unity. Blah blah blah new chapter in Ubrora's history. Same old, same old. It wasn't a bad speech, but he'd heard similartoo many times by now for it to hold his full attention.

Something that _did_ get his attention was being mentioned by name.

"At this point, I'd like to ask that Sascha Whitestar and Nara Nalto join me at the podium for a special unveiling."

Sascha looked over at Nara, who seemed equally confused by the request. But she used the control stick on her hoverchair to move herself towards the podium. Sascha followed, limping along behind her.

Mollek acknowledged them with a brisk nod before turning his attention back to the crowd, "These two Jedi were a common sight in this city over the past few weeks. We owe them a debt of gratitude for their efforts in this city."

The crowd applauded politely, and Sascha acknowledged the applause. Yet he felt that Mollek's little introduction had done a disservice to those he and Nara had fought with.

President Mollek continued, "While I am pleased that these two Jedi are standing here beside me today, we must also take the time to remember those that were lost in the fighting. To do that we must make something permanent, not something temporary. Something that will last the test of time. Something future generations will see and understand."

Sascha looked over to Nara, who offered him an almost imperceptible shrug. It seemed like neither Padawan knew where this was going.

President Mollek gestured to an open space that had been left on the platform, "So last week I asked permission for a statue to be made of a specific heroic young woman that was taken from us all too soon."

Sascha knew where this was going. His knees went weak, and he had to fight to maintain his balance. Nara reached out and grabbed on to his hand. He held on to her hand and squeezed it hard.

Mollek continued, "The stonesculptors will be working on it for a few more weeks, getting every detail right, but I would like to present a memorial to Lirri Boikana, one that commemorates her sacrifice and those that fought beside her."

After a moment of delay a holographic projection appeared on that empty space on the platform. It was a statue of Lirri Boikana, as he had suspected. But he had not expected the way it would look. Lirri was dressed in Jedi robes like that ones she had worn after he and Nara had told her that she was Force sensitive. Lirri was posed in a classic Jedi manner, just like many of the statues that lined the outside of the Jedi Temple on Coruscant, legs shoulder width apart, holding a lightsaber aloft above her head. It was like looking at the Jedi legend that she could have been.

No, he corrected himself, it was like looking at the Jedi legend that she _was_.

Sascha felt hot tears sliding down his face, but he wasn't ashamed of them, he didn't try to hide them. He just held on to Nara's hand and squeezed it as if it was the only thing that would allow him to keep standing.

As the crowd applauded appreciatively, Sascha turned to face Nara. His friend was openly weeping, letting tears fall just as freely as he was. He knelt next to her on shaky legs and brought her head towards her shoulder, letting her pour her tears out there.

As the applause died down, Nara let go of him. "It's beautiful, isn't it?" she said in a weak voice.

Sascha looked back up at the calm, impressive looking visage of Lirri Boikana, "She would have loved it," he said.

Nara wiped away some of her tears, gestured towards the podium, "I think the President wants you to say a few words."

"I don't know what I would say."

"You'll find the words, you always do," she said.

"I'll do it as long as you are right there with me," he said as he stood.

"Deal," said Nara, extending her hand so that they could move to the podium together. One human, limping slightly on an injured leg, and one injured Togrtua in a hoverchair. Two best friends.

Mollek noticed them approaching and said, "I believe our two Jedi would like to say a few words." Then he nodded to Sascha.

Sascha took a moment to collect himself before speaking, "I'm going to keep this short," he said. "I think its natural to look at what I'm sure will be a wonderful statue of Lirri Boikana and see it as a testament to what Ubrora lost during this conflict. But Lirri was an optimist at heart. She was someone who was always pushing to see a better future. So while I do think that we should remember Lirri, and all those that we have lost, it is important to not be weighed down by that loss, and to create a Ubrora that she and all the others that are no longer with us would be proud of."

While the crowd applauded politely, Nara pulled discreetly on the sleeve of his robe. He leaned over so he could hear Nara better, "Mention being friends," she said, just loud enough for him to hear.

Sascha bobbed his head in understanding. Ending a speech was always the toughest part, and now Nara had given him an idea of how to do that. "It's always...hard...to lose a friend. And I considered Lirri to be one of mine. But, during my time here, I've come to realize that even loss teaches us a necessary lesson. It teaches us that life is precious and can be taken away from us at any time. A cynic would tell you that you shouldn't make friends, that life is so fragile that you shouldn't commit yourself to caring about people, because losing them can only bring hurt and suffering. But I would say to that person, that the person who does not suffer, does not lose, and only cares about themselves, _that_ is the person that is truly lost. So we must take this loss of Lirri Boikana and others like her and channel that energy forward in our lives. We must redouble our commitment to our friends and our allies. For only then can we say that we truly lived like Lirri did. I thank Lirri Boikana for teaching me this lesson. And it's a lesson I'll carry with me for the rest of my life. Thank you!"

As the crowd applauded, he and Nara took one last glance towards the holographic form of Lirri Boikana. It was undoubtedly going to be a powerful reminder of loss and hardship, but he also hoped that people would see it as a source of hope, of pride, of how the little guy stood up to impossible odds and won the day.

Sascha walked back towards his Master and met her halfway from her seat. She held out her arms for an embrace and he accepted it, not hesitating for a moment. He held on for a couple of long moments before letting go.

"I'm proud of you Padawan," said Aurine.

"I know," he replied quietly.

"You've grown up a lot haven't you?"

"I still have lots of growing to do," he said honestly.

"Let's do it together, Padawan."

"I can't think of anything else I'd like to do, Master."


	65. Chapter 65: Epilogue

**LordDarthYoda** \- I didn't even think of the statue being torn down. Wow, now I'm sad too...

 **Speechbubbleme** \- Well, I've had The Phantom Menace on the mind because I'm reading your fic! But yes, much of this book is an 'echo' of the story in The Phantom Menace, so it is intentional. The ending was certainly bittersweet, but it was a nice way to end things.

 **Child of Whimsy -** The cameras were something of a red herring, admittedly. I wanted to make Ubroran society feel unique (and provide a bit of social commentary), so I thought up the cameras. The cameras did continue to play a bit of a role, but they were certainly pushed to the back seat. The whole war was supposed to come out of left field, so I needed to set up something equally interesting (hence the negotiations). Thanks for the well wishes! Happy reading!

A/N - Going to divide this into two parts - quick epilogue, and then a short preview of book 3.

Quick note that for book 4, I'm going to go to **1 Chapter per week**. Now that I have a full time job, I simply cannot keep up with the prolific level of writing that I've been doing. I'll start posting book 4 on **Sunday March 12** and a chapter every Sunday thereafter. I want to stick to a schedule, but doing 2 updates a week really stresses me out, especially as I'm running low in pre-written material. so we'll go to 1 chapter a week. Sorry! But it will hopefully allow for a better edited story with less mistakes.

If you are reading this...thank you! Thanks for dealing with my terrible grammar, horrendous writing, spelling mistakes and plot holes. I have no idea why you do it. Thank you so much!

Please enjoy the next chapter.

* * *

 **Epilogue: Time Well Spent**

Sascha Whitestar woke up in a bed that was not his own, but that was as he had expected. In true Jedi fashion, He and his Master were hitching a ride to their destination, the sanctuary world of Neida. Ravar Ecalt had agreed to drop the Jedi off free of charge as he returned back to Noonar to continue running Ecalt Industries. To that end, he had summoned his own personal yacht, the stylishly designed _Ecalt's Fancy_. It was one of the nicest ships Sascha had ever seen, and certainly the most luxirous that he'd ever been on. His bed had been so comfortable that he had slept for almost eleven hours, which was quite unlike him.

Sascha, still in something of a haze after waking up, put on his robe and padded out the door, barefoot. Despite the unfamiliar design of the ship, he had made sure that he knew where the food was stored the night before, and he made his way there, yawning as he did. He decided that he wanted something simple so he grabbed a pre-prepared container of fruits from the refrigeration unit, hunted around for a utensil (always hard to do in unfamiliar surroundings) and upon procuring one, sat at the small table nearby.

As he quietly munched on his breakfast, his mind drifted elsewhere. That was why he was a bit surprised to see his Master slide into the seat right across from him. So surprised that he almost choked on his fruit as he was swallowing it. He managed to choke it down before coughing a greeting to his Master.

Aurine watched in amusement as he struggled to eat his breakfast. "Now there would be a headline, 'War Hero Padawan Dies Eating Breakfast Fruit.'"

Sascha coughed to clear his throat one last time before answering, "Better than the headline, "War Hero Jedi Knight Watches Padawan Die Eating His Breakfast Fruit.'"

His Master smiled broadly, "You may have me on that one."

He grabbed a nearby napkin and wiped the sticky remains of the fruit off his hands, "How long until we get to Neida?"

Aurine leaned back casually in her seat, "About one standard day. We had to make a couple of shorter jumps on our way to get there as Neida is a bit out of the normal space lanes. Did you do your research on the planet?"

He had. Neida was a long time sanctuary world with a temperate climate and a nice lack of any large predator that could be to decent sized omnivores like humans. Noted for its lush forests and numerous rivers, Neida had been a long time favourite of Jedi that wanted to relax and commune with nature. "Is anyone else going to be there with us?"

"There is a Republic research team on world. They are just about ready to complete their trip, so we'll be catching a ride back to Coruscant with them."

"The classic Jedi tradition of hitchhiking," he said drolly.

"We _are_ supposed to be austere monks. Traveling aboard luxury starships is not what you should be expecting or anticipating. Anyways h _aving_ a Jedi on board your ship is considered to be good luck by most starship captains," said Aurine.

"Do you think that applies to you and me?"

His Master's eyes glittered, "Very funny, Padawan."

"I try," he said.

Aurine paused for a few moments, "I'm glad to see you haven't lost your sense of humor."

"I'm glad too."

Aurine took out something from the pocket of her robe and put it on the table. It was his datapad, "You left it out last night before you went to bed. I saw this morning that you received two messages when we dropped out of hyperspace last night."

"Did you look at these messages?"

His Master managed a slightly wounded look, "As you know I do have access to your datapad. I don't use it very often. I have not used it since the whole Tyra incident. I trust you, Sascha."

"Sorry, I wasn't accusing you. I just wanted to know if you knew who they were from."

"I'd bet that one is from Nara. The other one...I don't know. Got any hot dates I don't know about, Sascha?"

"Ha, ha, very funny, Master."

"Well, you have a free day. I'd like if we mediated for a while today, but I'll leave the time up to you."

Sascha nodded, "I think I'd like a nice morning meditation. I'll find you soon," he said as he stood, swiping his datapad off the table as he did.

He walked back to his room, still limping slightly. His knee was still pretty sore, but as long as he didn't do anything crazy he didn't think he could reinjure it. Sascha got to his room and laid in his bet, propping himself up with his pillow. He pulled out his datapad and put in his password. From the main screen he saw that he indeed has two messages. He opened the first message. As his Master had suspected it was from Nara.

The face of his friend appeared on his screen. He could tell that Nara was in the Halls of Healing, there was no mistaking the colours on the walls for anywhere else in the galaxy. Nara's face had a brightness to it that it had lacked when she had departed, obviously having some quality medical help and time to relax had helped her.

"Hey Sascha. I'll be quick because Master (whoever) is already annoyed with me and I've only been here for one day. I wanted to give you a quick update before you escape into the peaceful wilderness." Nara looked around, "I'm doing...okay. It's a bit weird to be back at the Temple. And it's odd not to have you here with me," she laughed. "I wanted to say that I miss you, but that sounded weird...even though it's true. I'll miss your companionship, but hopefully we'll be on another mission soon, one that's maybe a little less intense than the last one."

Nara's smile faded for a moment, "I also wanted to say thanks for all that you did for me. I know you are the selfless type so you don't need my thanks, but I _am_ thankful. I'm glad that I've really gotten to know you, and I think your influence has made me into a better person." Nara looked off screen, "Hey, i gotta go. Message me when you can Sascha! Thanks!"

Sascha smiled and put a note into his datapad to craft a response to Nara at some point. While Nara certainly deserved a response from him, it would probably be a good thing if they had a little bit of distance between themselves for a while.

Sascha cued up the next video. He almost dropped it when he saw who had left him a message.

Tyra.

It had bee probably more than a year since he had seen her last and in some ways she hadn't changed much at all. Her hair was different, having ben cut short into an almost boyish looking hairdo. Her facial features had become just a slight bit more defined, her cheekbones were now very slightly more proiminant, but it was still very obviously Tyra Harker. The girl that had broke her heart, and him.

Tyra smiled faintly, "Hey Sascha. I guess this will be quite a shock to see me in this message."

"You have no idea," he muttered.

"So I'm back in the Temple and resuming my studies after my mission, which I can tell you was long and fruitless." Tyra looked rather frustrated, "There were lots of times where I thought I was close to a major breakthrough. If I didn't know any better I could swear that whoever I was chasing was taunting me. But now I'm back."

She smiled and Sascha's heart melted just slightly, "I heard that you got yourself involved in a war, on an out of the way planet called Ubrora. You've become something of a small legend in the Temple, you, Aurine, Tiplee and Nara that is. A Jedi fighting a war...it sounds unbelievable. But trouble always seems to follow you around, doesn't it Sascha?"

Tyra Harker took a long, deep breath and her expression became more serious, "I heard from Doro and Trigg that you took what I did to you...badly. I am sorry that I acted the way I did, but I felt like I had to make a clean break and that was the easiest way to do it. It was a bit cowardly of me, I'll admit. But sometimes it's easier to recover from one stab wound than a thousand little cuts." Tyra winced, "That's a pretty awful metaphor, but you get the point."

"It took me a while to get over you, Sascha. But I think I finally have. I think, that when you are ready as well, we can try to be friends ago. We can take it slow...resuming our friendship, but I'd really like to be friends again."

Tyra did a little wave, "See you around, Sascha."

Sascha closed his datapad and leaned back into his pillow. That had been unexpected. But despite the small twinge of emotion he had felt upon seeing Tyra again, he didn't feel as if he still had this huge pool of unrequited emotion like he'd had many months ago. Maybe he would be able to rekindle his friendship with Tyra. Who knew. It was a strange galaxy out that was something he could worry about for another day.

Because today belonged to Sascha Whitestar, Jedi Padawan, and no one else.

* * *

 **And Now A Preview of Growing up Jedi, Book 4**

Aurine Brynar's glass was empty, but she wasn't drunk. She was certainly pleasantly buzzed though. In the seat across from her Tiplee looked similarly pleased. "Good memories," said the Rishati.

"Yes," she agreed.

"When it came to being, uhm, amorous, were you more like Nara or like Sascha when you were younger?" inquired Tiplee.

"First I was more like Nara, but without the restraint," she admitted. "Then I became more like Sascha," she admitted. "I let my guard down around boys too easily when I was younger. It took me a little while to find the appropriate balance between fun and, well, stupidity."

"That's not exactly uncommon among young people."

That was probably closer to the truth that Aurine was willing to admit, slightly buzzed or not, "Good psychoanalysis. I can see why you are a Jedi Master."

Tiplee smiled wanly, twirling her empty glass, "I would not have made that rank without you, Aurine."

Aurine waved a hand dismissively, "I disagree, you were going to be made a Jedi Master regardless of if you met me or not."

Tiplee bowed her head in gratitude at her praise, and paused for a moment before speaking again, "I have a question for you."

"Go ahead."

"Do you think that Nara and Sascha are ready to go on a mission together?"

She frowned, "Sascha and Nara have been on missions together before."

"Sub-missions, where we are always around. Even on Ubrora, we were on the same planet as them. I meant do you think they are ready for a mission where they'd be completely on their own?"

Aurine felt her eyes widen, "Somehow I don't think you are asking a hypothetical question."

"I'm not," said the Rishati. "Earlier today, while I was waiting for you to arrive, I received two missions from the Council and their suggestion was that the Padawans could be given one of the missions, while we take on the other one together. They've left the final decision up to me, though."

"And the two missions are?"

"One is tracking down a bounty hunter that has gone...shall we say _beyond_ the call of duty in tracking down some bounties. He is to be arrested on a rather lengthy litany of charges. The other mission is investigating some anti-Jedi sentiment at a few institutions of higher learning and if possible, putting an end to it."

It didn't take long for Aurine to figure out which of the missions would be assigned to their apprentices, "So you are essentially giving me the choice of going to track a bounty hunter with you, or to observe my apprentice as he goes undercover at a University."

"Pretty much," replied Tiplee with a knowing smile.

She leaned back in her chair, thinking the scenario over. She has a far-reaching trust in Sascha. Her apprentice was now nineteen and more experienced in the ways of being a Jedi. In her opinion, he was level headed enough to be entrusted with a mission without her direct or indirect supervision. Especially a mission that doesn't seem to bring too much danger to it. Yet, there is still that old disquiet that she has about Sascha and Nara being together, alone. At this point its a stupid thing to worry about, Nara hasn't shown the slightest bit of interest in Sascha and Sascha is too shy to kiss any girl, let alone Nara.

Aurine decided that it was about time she puts her trust fully behind Sascha and Nara, "I believe that Sascha and Nara are mature enough to handle being on a mission together."

Tiplee nodded solemnly, "I agree. When they get back, we'll give them the good news."

Sascha Whitestar entered the code to lower the boarding ramp of the _Emerald Dream_. Upon the ramp lowering to the ground, he gestured to the droid that he had rented that was carrying the supplies that he and Nara had bought. Compliantly, the silver-gray droid, well-laden with the numerous supplies, rolled up the ramp. Once the droid had gotten inside, the droid turned it's optical sensors on him in a silent question, "Just put it anywhere. We'll unpack the supplies. Thank you."

The droid lowered the pallet on to the ground, and beeped in satisfaction. Sascha bowed slightly to the droid and the loader droid wheeled itself down the boarding ramp and back towards the shop. Nara closed the ramp once the droid was off the ship.

Aurine and Tiplee soon joined them in the small cargo hold, "You got everything on the list?" asked his Master.

"Yep," he replied.

"Did you get anything for yourselves?" inquired Tiplee.

He jerked a thumb at Nara, "She got some of that Quintillan jerky that she likes."

"It's tasty!" said Nara defensively.

"And a mild stimulant for Togruta," he added impishly.

"It's legal in a vast majority of planets in the Republic," Nara retorted.

Sascha nudged Nara lightly on the shoulder, "It's so much fun to get you riled up."

Nara advanced on him, feigning being angry, "Oh, I'll show _you_ riled up."

Sascha ran and hid behind his Master, "Help! She's high on Quintillan jerky! She thinks I'm her next snack!"

Tiplee cleared her throat, instantly, the two Padawans stopped their playacting and snapped into an attentive pose, hands politely folded behind their backs. The Rishati smiled at their instant compliance, "While I generally enjoy your playful banter, I would appreciate if cut it out for a moment." The Rishati took a deep breath, "Why don't you join Aurine and I in the lounge."

The oddly formal phrasing from Tiplee gave Sascha pause, and he cast a look at Nara to see if she knew what was going on, but the Togruta seemed equally confused. Sascha shrugged, and sauntered towards the small lounge. The four Jedi gathered around the small table, each Padawan shoulder-to-shoulder with their Master.

"We have a mission for you two," said Tiplee without formality.

It took a second for Sascha to process the peculiar phrasing, "For me and Nara?"

His Master turned her head and smiled slightly, "Yes. You two have proved time and again that you are an effective pairing. You are both older now, and more than mature enough to handle being on your own together. This mission that we have for you is a good fit for your skills."

Across from him, Nara was trying, and failing, to keep her delight off of her face. He wasn't quite sure what his expression was at the moment, but he was probably doing something similar. Tiplee grinned knowingly at the two apprentices, "I know this is a big moment for you two. Your friendship has been one that has invited scrutiny at times, but Aurine and I also wanted to show the faith that we have in both of you."

"Where are we going? What is our mission?" asked Nara excitedly.

Tiplee pressed a button on her datapad, and Sascha heard his datapad beep, indicating that a file had been transferred to it, "I've sent you two the mission profile. I want you and Nara to look over the mission and give us a plan as to how you are going to complete it."

"Be open ended," Aurine advised, "As you know what is written on the datapad before a mission is rarely what you get when you actually arrive at the planet. Still, planning does have its uses."

Nara bounced off her seat enthusiastically, "Come on, lets go to your room and start planning, Sascha." The Togruta put words to action and took off for his room. Sascha offered a slight shrug to the two Jedi Knights and followed the Togruta to his room.


End file.
